BANGALORE: The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) now seem to stand a chance at the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) project after decades of trying to make a mark its presence in the global rankings.   Recently, the government granted 165 courses as a piece of the initiative that will facilitate international faculty members to correspond with premier engineering schools of higher learning, reports ET.

A senior human resource development (HRD) ministry official said "This is an attempt to improve the academic and research network of the institutes in the country and improvement in ranking would be one of the byproducts”.

Taking the stand as the highest number of approved courses under GIAN is IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur having 31 and 28, respectively. Overall, around 60 institutes are eligible to conduct various  courses in different parts of the country.

According to the IIM Indore website, they cited that GIAN initiative is aimed at tapping the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs, internationally to encourage their engagement with the institutes of higher education in India so as to augment the country's existing academic resources, accelerate the pace of quality reform, and elevate India's scientific and technological capacity to global excellence".

The main purpose is to bring out the exchange of student research, faculty and course content among Indians and overseas universities. The ministry also aims at producing build premium course materials in niche areas in hopes of being utilized by other students and faculty in the country.
 

Among the six criteria that dominate the overall rankings, the Indian institutes have evidently lagged behind overseas schools in revere to the numbers of international faculty and students. IIT Delhi has also scored better in comparison to other IITs, which fared 36 in the QS World University rankings. The however, Faculty appointments will improve academic standards to a large extend and thus making it to the rankings cited said Devang Khakhar, director, IIT Bombay.

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