IITs can offer med courses, take on foreign profs, decides council

The debate over whether the Indian Institutes of Technology, the country's premier technical education centres, can offer courses in medical educations is over; as is the discussion over hiring foreign professors on a full time basis.

Taking some key decisions, the IIT council on Friday gave the go-ahead to its institutes to venture into medical education, open the doors to foreign faculty as well as foreign students at the postgraduate level and institute a special cadre of technical staff. 

The plan to revamp the IIT-JEE admission process, however, suffered a jolt. There is no consensus on the issue, which has been referred to another committee. 

''The IIT Council has decided in favour of enabling IITs to offer medicine as a course. While this will require an amendment to the IIT Act, it was also considered that in case of a medical course that leads to a degree allowing one to practice medicine, clearance would be required from the Medical Council of India,'' said human resources development minister Kapil Sibal, who chaired the council meeting. Headed by the HRD minister, the IIT council is the governing board for all IITs. 

The IITs have been showing keen interest in expanding their horizons and setting up of medical schools, with IIT Kharagpur even having firmed up a proposal to this effect. But with opposition from the ministry of health, the plan could not take off earlier. The health ministry had not favoured IITs starting medical courses, suggesting instead that they consider starting PhD programmes involving collaboration between engineering and medical science.

Sibal pointed out that besides medicine courses leading to the awarding of a degree, there were a number of inter-disciplinary courses with engineering and health science components that could be offered at IITs.