A Board nominated by the Visitor and a Senate that owns the standards: the statute governing the IITs

Background

The Institutes of Technology Act of 1961 declares the institutes of technology named in it to be institutions of national importance and provides for how each is run. As first enacted it covered the institutes at Bombay, Kanpur and Madras; amendments then brought in Delhi, Guwahati and Roorkee, and later Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Indore, Jodhpur, Mandi, Patna, Ropar, Tirupati, Palakkad, Goa, Dharwad, Bhilai, Jammu, the institute at Banaras Hindu University and the Indian School of Mines at Dhanbad, while the same Act repealed the separate 1956 Act of the institute at Kharagpur. The institute at Delhi came from the society once known as the College of Engineering and Technology, Delhi. Every institute can teach and research in engineering, technology, the sciences and the arts, hold examinations, grant degrees, diplomas and other academic distinctions, and confer honorary degrees. The Act also requires every institute to admit and employ people whatever their sex, race, creed, caste or class, and forbids any test about religious belief for a member, student, teacher or worker. The authorities of an institute are a Board of Governors, a Senate and whatever else its Statutes declare. The Board has a Chairman nominated by the Visitor, the Director as an ex officio member, one technologist or industrialist nominated by the government of each State in the institute's zone, four persons with special knowledge of education, engineering or science nominated by the Council, and two professors nominated by the Senate; the Senate controls and is responsible for the standards of instruction, education and examination. The statute is worth revisiting as Indian universities again missed the top fifty of the QS Asia rankings, with the institute at Delhi the highest placed Indian entry at 66th and 325 Indian institutions ranked in all.