Foreign Faculty Members under GIAN Programme for IITs, IIMs and IISc

Under the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) programme, some of the major higher education academic institutes like IIMs, IITs and IISc would get foreign faculty members for this academic year. The national coordinator for collaborating with institutes like IITs, IIMs, IISc, and NITs under GIAN has been selected to be IIT-Kharagpur.

According to the Director of IIT Kharagpur, Professor P P Chakrabarti they have planned 500 such courses by foreign teachers for the academic year 2015-16. For this purpose there has been outlay of about Rs. 35 crore. There would be faculty members joining in as distinguished, adjunct, visiting faculty or professor of practice for various institutes. There would be other faculty members would come by to deliver short or semester long courses in these institutes. Such courses would be for credit and would be made available by the host institution for participation from other institutions.

Through ISWT (International Summer Winter Term), flagship programme of IIT Kharagpur, international experts would be able to teach in India. There would be a concerned motivations among them to work on problems related to India and would help developing the quality of course material and niche areas. The foreign faculty members could use both video and print medium to cater to a large number of students and teachers together in order to solve the problems in the niche areas of study. There would be new pedagogic methods would also also get developed and documented through this programme and topics of national and international interest would be given priority.

GIAN implementation committee Chairman Vinay Sheel Oberoi, who is also the Secretary of Department of Higher Education under the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development, would implement the programme in the various institutes. This would further create possibilities of future collaborations in research and development with the international faculty and students of international institutes of repute.