Wednesday, April 30, 2014

IIIT - a National Institute

The IIIT Bhubaneswar act passed by the Odisha Legislative Assembly gives the Institute status of a University and autonomy in many respects.

When the Institute started in 2007, we were affiliated to BPUT. BPUT gave autonomy for M.Tech programme but there was no autonomy for B.Tech Programme.

The admission to the M.Tech. programme was through the counselling process conducted by the Institute. However, the admission to the B.Tech was through Odisha JEE.

As per the norms of the Odisha JEE, all the seats in Government Institutes were allotted to the Odisha Domicile Students. IIIT being a Government Institute also got all its seats filled up by Odisha Domicile Students.

IIIT Bhubaneswar like its peers in Hyderabad and Bangalore was conceived as a National Institute. The National nature of the Institute requires that curriculum be at par with the National Institutes, the composition of the students be national. The Act provided this feature by reserving 50% seats for the Odisha Domicile Students and rest for the students from other states.

The National character of the Institute will help in enhancing recognition, placement, industry relations of the Institute. This will help the Institute to be competitive among the other peer Institute.

Odisha JEE has a few constraints. For example, it is not possible for a participating Institute to impose a specific minimum standard for its students. To get better students, the Institute may like to enhance the minimum requirements. However, the structure of OJEE will not permit that.

Hence, the Institute has decided to have its own counselling process. The Institute will endeavour to make this process efficient, transparent and student friendly. Watch the website for details which will be published soon.