Odisha HRD

IIT-Hyderabad to design inter-disciplinary courses; Whats up with IIT Bhubaneswar?

June 17th, 2009

Following is an excerpt from business standard

The new director of IIT-H, U B Desai, will encourage more interplay between various streams to give an edge to the students.

Speaking to Business Standard, he said IIT-H will encourage interdisciplinary courses to give an edge to the students. For example, it might set up a school of thermal sciences that would house electrical engineering and IT streams. There might also be a wing that would have a mix of biological sciences and information technology for a degree in bioinformatics.

Research will be a key focus area for IIT-H, Desai said, adding that about 35 M.Techs will be admitted this July. The institute also plans to admit about 10-15 PhDs. Last year, it admitted 11 research scholars. The research areas will span across computer science,  chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering streams. “Faculty research will be promoted in a big way,” said Desai.

Eventually, it would have 10 departments and about 5,000 students and about 500 faculty at all levels to maintain a 1:10 faculty to student ratio. It would also gradually offer MSc courses in pure sciences. The total budget for the IIT-H complete with all facilities, faculty and infrastructure is put at Rs 1,200 crore, to be spent in phases including building a new campus in about 523 acre at Kandi.

IT-H, meanwhile, also plans to connect with the local community and invite local schools and colleges for various events at the institute to promote a scientific temperament among students. It also plans to work with universities and higher education institutes in the state in areas of mutual interest. “It is a challenging task to develop a greenfield institute,” said Desai, adding that best practices of other IITs would be replicated here.

Entry Filed under: NITs, IIITs