Chasing the IIT dream, across the Palk Bay

By Meera Srinivasan 

The Hindu: With foreign nationals becoming eligible to compete for the IITs, Sri Lanka’s high school students are aiming high.

After completing her AS levels — equivalent of class 11 — at a Colombo school, Sasmithaa Manickam is exploring her options in higher education.

If her dream materialises, she may be, in a couple of years, studying at a premier institution in India, learning the fundamentals of computer science engineering. She has set her sights on the Indian Institutes of Technology. 

“I got to know about the IITs while reading about top techies in places like Google. I also have heard a lot about the institutes from my friends and relatives living in India,” she said, after an interactive session with visiting academics from the IITs on Monday. A team of six IIT professors is in Sri Lanka to orient students to the admissions system at the IITs.

Earlier this year, the IITs had announced plans to hold entrance examinations abroad — in Singapore, UAE, Ethiopia and SAARC nations. Following that, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, along with the Ministry of External Affairs, has begun its outreach.

The initiative enables, for the first time, foreign nationals to compete for IIT seats. Up to now, the entrance exams were conducted only to admit Indians living abroad. “The IITs have made it to top slots in some international ranking lists. However, admitting more foreign students will put the IITs at an even higher level globally,” said Santosh J. Gharpure, associate professor, IIT-Bombay, at a discussion organised by the Indian High Commission in Colombo.

Foreign nationals will be admitted to undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of the IITs from the year 2017-18. They could appear for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) in Sri Lanka, on the same day and time, like aspirants in India. The IITs will add seats to their existing pool, opening up new space where foreign nationals compete with each other, without any change to the admission process students.

Sri Lanka has, for long, been setting an example in the region with its highly-regarded public school and university system. However, the last few years have witnessed a stronger push for private education here. Moreover, many high school students, particularly those from Colombo, are increasingly considering higher education abroad — even at the undergraduate level — targeting colleges in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia.

Soon, students who aspire to pursue an engineering degree can now consider colleges right across the Palk Bay now that the IITs have opened their gates to them.

“To start with, it is so close by. The courses also tend to be more affordable than in the West,” said KavishnaSekar, who wants to study chemical engineering.

The IITs have so far had international students mostly as part of exchange programmes. “This sort of diversity will be great for Indian students. So it’s an advantage not just to the foreign students, but a great value addition to the experience of our students in India as well. It’s a win-win situation,” said U.K. Anandavardhanan, associate professor at IIT-Bombay.

The professors said they would hold a similar session in Jaffna.

IISc to conduct exams

Speaking on this, BhaskarRamamurthi, Director at IIT-Madras, said that it had not yet been decided if the foreign students would only appear for the Joint Engineering Entrance (Advanced) or the JEE (Main) too.

He said the exams would be conducted by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the foreign aspirants would take the exam on the same date, same time as students in India.

Each institute can decide on the number of students it wants to admit, he added.

“The number of seats for Indian students would not be reduced in any of the branches even if foreign students are admitted,” he explained, adding, “A student will get admitted to a programme by virtue of having qualified in the entrance exam.”