Living the Big IIT Dream: GTU Launches Oppurtunity for its Students to Study at IIT Gandhinagar

Gujarat Technical University(GTU) will initially choose 10 meritorious students to study at IIT-Gandhinagar for a semester; students will experience different cultures on campus and learn from some of the best faculty members in the country without spending extra money.

Most of India's aspiring engineers dream of being admitted to the IIT. While they have to pass entrance exams to enter the Mecca of Engineering Education, the Government of Gujarat is giving students at GTU-affiliated government engineering colleges the opportunity to study at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn) for a whole semester. All they need are good grades.

What's even better is that these students won't have to spend their time living on campus and learning from some of the best faculty members in the country. Following the meeting of the IIT-Gn Board of Governors on Thursday, the State Education Department issued a final approval stamp on the proposal to be implemented from this academic year.

The icing on the cake is that this experience will not cost students an extra paisa, said Anju Sharma, Principal Secretary of Education. She said to Mirror, "While IIT-Gn will bear half of the school fees, the education department will bear the remaining half. The idea is to bring the best of every possible aspect of learning to the table for bright, well-deserved students."

“Initially, we will choose 10 students from government engineering colleges who will get to spend six months (an entire semester) at IIT-Gn, studying the branch of engineering they got admission to. We have begun the process to align semester and credits."

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There are 16 government engineering colleges in Gujarat, with an annual attendance of nearly 9,000 students, officials in the Department of Education said. In the meantime, IIT-Gn welcomed students from 20 states to its 2019 BTech batch. The highest number of students came from Rajasthan (50), followed by Gujarat (44) and Maharashtra (32). In addition, 17 students came from Andhra Pradesh, 15 from Telangana, 12 from Madhya Pradesh, 11 from Uttar Pradesh, and 6 from Bihar, among others.

IIT-Gn Director Sudhir Jain said the institute already has a program where engineering college students spend a semester on campus. "I have proposed this to the Government of Gujarat, which is finally seeing the light of day. When we introduce government engineering students, they will study here as an IIT-Gn student. Not only will they study from the best of our faculty members, have access to laboratories, be part of research activities and projects, but they will also stay in our hostel, experience and learn from a diverse background.”

Jain added, "The project is even more significant as government engineering colleges do not have student exchange programmes with other institutes. If a student enrolled in LD Engineering College gets an opportunity to study at IIT-Gn, the culture is different from his/her college. It may not be superior, but the exposure to different cultures brings its own set of thrills and challenges. Also, completing a semester at IIT-Gn will boost the students' CV and give him/her advantage over fellow-students."

The IIT-Gn director said, "Our fee is approximately Rs 2 lakh per year. This comes to INR 1 lakh per semester. Of this, 50% will be paid by IIT-Gn from its endowment fund and the rest of it will be borne by the Gujarat government."

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Sharma said the education department has put the proposal in the budget to make sure there's the financial allocation for the same.

Officials working on the project to ensure a smooth transition for students said they were planning to screen students in Graduate Engineering Semesters 4, 5 and 6 at Government Engineering Colleges. The proposal was handed over to GTU officials to work on the nitty-gritty.

Nilay Bhuptani, Principal of Vishwakarma Government Engineering College, said, "Engineering subjects are more or less the same. It's just that they can be taught in different semesters at both institutes. We 're screening the syllabus to work out which semester students should be sent to IIT-Gn. Similarly, GTU courses get 3 or 4 credits. This will be different at IIT-Gn.”

He added that work on the proposal has begun and plans to select 10 students to be sent to IIT-Gn next semester.

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