The IIT Council meeting was held on 18 April 2023 at IIT Bhubaneswar. The Education Minister, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, presided over the meeting, and the directors of all 23 IITs and Chairman UGC Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar participated in the deliberations.
Among others, the IIT Council made an important decision on the National Credit Framework (NCrF). The UGC chairman presented on NCrF and informed the council that “The National Education Policy 2020 envisions making education more holistic and effective and emphasizes the integration of general (academic) education and vocational education. A national credit accumulation and transfer system is essential to fulfilling this vision. The Govt. of India constituted a High-Level Committee with members from UGC, AICTE, NCVET, NIOS, CBSE, NCERT, DGT, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Skill Development.”
He further informed the council that “NCrF is a comprehensive credit framework encompassing elementary, school, higher, and vocational education & training, integrating crediting of learning in various dimensions, i.e., academics, vocational skills and Experiential learning including relevant experience and proficiency/ professional levels acquired.”
He also pointed out that IITs themselves took a lead role in conducting region-wise awareness workshops that were also conducted for teachers and administrators from school education and higher education.
Five workshops were organised viz. at IIT Delhi on 21.11.2022 for North Zone, at IIT Bhubaneswar on 24.11.2022 for East Zone, at IIT Guwahati on 26.11.2022 for North East Zone, at IIT Bombay on 28.11.2022 for West Zone and at IIT Madras on 29.11.2022 for South Zone.
After the presentation made by the Chairman, UGC, the IIT Council decided unanimously to adopt the National Credit Framework and implement it across all IITs. The Chairman UGC said, “Adoption of a national credit framework by the IIT council is a great decision since this will provide a better equivalence of credits obtained in general (academic) education, technical education, and skill & vocational education. It will encourage the rest of the higher education system to adopt and implement the national credit framework bringing a unified inclusive meta framework across the country”.