IITs are no more than 'glorified' engineering colleges: UGC Chairman
The University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman, Dr Ved Prakash has said that the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are no more than “glorified engineering colleges”.
Dr Prakash while emphasizing upon the importance of universities, said he was miffed at not receiving any research proposals for Singh-Obama initiative from the universities and the same had to be awarded to an IIT.
Thr UGC Chairman said since universities were not coming forward so the initiative had to be awarded to IIT (“IITs ko majboori mein dena pada”) for execution in the wake of country's “prestige”.
“IIT, Kya hai IIT. (What are IITs?). Glorified engineering colleges. University aur IIT mein zameen aasman ka antar hai (University and IITs are poles apart),” Prakash said.
He was all praise for Union Government’s ambitious Rs 22,000 crore project Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) and said Punjab stood to gain hugely from it. “I am sure you are going to pick up a major chunk,” he said.
Prakash said that Universities were far more important than IITs. Universities had a higher intake of students, reported Indian Express.