Joint relationships

If you think Delhi University has been hogging the limelight of late, then think again because the Indian Institutes of Technology are also gearing up. Recently, the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law at IIT, Kharagpur, signed a deal with the Law School of George Washington University for students and faculty exchanges. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed at a meeting in Washington, DC, where Vinod Gupta, a distinguished alumnus and Life Fellow of IIT, Kharagpur, pledged $250,000 for the next five years for the exchange of eight to 10 students along with faculty members.

Gupta would provide additional support for the institutions’ joint relationship, particularly to supplement student exchanges. His previous support has already allowed for such exchanges and for a variety of other activities such as lectures by the GW Law faculty, members at IIT, Kharagpur, and scholarships for Rajiv Gandhi Law graduates to attend GW Law&’s LLM programme and others, a release said.

Not only this, the internship offers at IIT, Kharagpur, have gone up by 50 per cent this season. “The institute experienced a year-on-year increase of 33 per cent in the number of companies visiting campus and 50 per cent growth in the number of offers being extended respectively,” the statement issued by IIT, Kharagpur, said. Top global brands such as Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Microsoft, Facebook, Texas Instruments and Nomura, alongside FMCG giants ITC, Hindustan Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser, visited the campus with the start of the 2015-2016 internship seasons on 1 August. A total of 72 internship offers were extended on the first day of the season itself. With an expected increase of 100 per cent in the number of preplacement offers from last year, IIT, Kharagpur, is looking forward to superior placement statistics in 2015.

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“The trend for opportunities at IIT, Kharagpur, is increasing every year. With the increasing number of PPOs, we believe that companies really like the talent that IIT, Kharagpur, is offering,” said SK Barai, chairman of the institution&’s Career Development Centre.

On the distaff side, a total of 757 students dropped out of IITs and 717 students from NITs in the 2014-2015 academic session, Parliament was informed. The reasons for the dropouts may be attributed to the shifting to other colleges, personal and medical reasons, getting jobs during postgraduate courses and an inability to cope with academic stress, Union human resource development minister Smriti Irani told the Lok Sabha. According to data, 606 students dropped out of the 16 Indian Institutes of Technology in 2012-2013, while 697 dropped out in 2013-2014. Over 4,400 students have dropped out of IITs and NITs in the past three years. The figure for the 30 NITs was 850 (2012-2013) and 785 (2013-2014). She said the IITs had initiated continuous corrective action to minimise dropouts, including counselling to destress students, guidance and counselling units headed by faculty members and appointments of advisors. “(The) NITs have also adopted measures like quarter classes and special exams, additional coaching for weak students and tutor guardian in respective departments,” she said.

In 2014-15, the IITs witnessed 757 dropouts, which was higher than the 697 that dropped out in 2013-14 and the 606 who did do in 2012-13. During this period, IIT, Roorkee, saw the highest number, at 228, followed by IIT, Kharagpur (209), and IIT, Delhi (169). Interestingly, there were no dropouts at the IITs in Mandi, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Madras and Ropar during the 2014-15 period. There are 16 IITs and 30 NITs in the country. Of the NITs, there were 717 dropouts in 2014-15, lower than 785 seen in the year previous. In 2012-13, the dropout number stood at 850. Irani said there was a mechanism for helping students who were under stress. The government, she said, was committed to addressing issues related to academic stress.

Listing various initiatives that were in place to minimise dropouts at IITs, Irani said there was a guidance and counselling unit headed by a faculty member that worked closely with a number of faculty counsellors and advisors to “identify students facing emotional difficulties and guide them to professional counsellors for help”.

 

India Abroad News Service

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