Its time for some great news for all IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) aspirants who did not get admission to the prestigious institution. All the seven IIT’s in association with IISc (Indian Institute of Science) Bangalore plan to stream course materials and lectures online within the next few months. The plan is part of a Rs. 110 crore government project to help lift the academic standards especially in the fields of Science and Engineering as the private sector has always complained that engineering graduates from approximately 1500 engineering institutions across India other than IIT’s are ill-equipped when they come to work. The private sector feels that these graduates require exposure and training that is equal to IIT’s and IISc, and hence the project is in place.

The Central Government’s Human Resource Ministry has already invested more than Rs. 20 crore in the Phase I of the project which has already been completed. The curriculum will be similar across all IIT’s, as well as to many other institutions but to a lesser extent.

All the seven IIT Institutions have developed approximately 240 courses across five streams of engineering. They are computer science, civil, electrical engineering, electronics and communication and mechanical engineering. The whole purpose of the project is to increase the reach of quality education to more number of Indians instead of just a privileged few.

Mangala Sunder Krishnan, principal coordinator of the project at IIT Madras says:

“A large number of private institutions have entered the field of engineering education with inadequate faculty support and training. The project is aimed at providing a standard for academic content for both faculty and students across India,”

Meanwhile, much of the course material is already available on the NPTEL website, there could be a possibility that Google might be getting along with the IIT’s for a joint venture. It would be interesting to see if Google will be able to provide IIT’s with a platform that would syndicate the content, whether text or video, at one location. This would mean that an engineering student or even a engineering graduate would just need to log on to the search engine and watch the lectures any day any time.

Regarding a venture with IIT, a Google India spokesman said in an e-mail:

“Google is very committed to making our products as locally relevant and useful as possible, but we have nothing specific to share at this time,”

However Kannan Moudgalya, head of IIT Bombay’s distance engineering education programme says:

“We are in advanced stages of discussions with a few service providers to provide our course content on a non-exclusive basis,”

It will be interesting to see the growth this particular project can give to the engineering academia across the country. The project seems to be very interesting though it has to be seen what difference it can make to the life of an Indian engineering graduate.

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