New Delhi, Feb. 6: India has rejected a long-pending request from Singapore to set up an Indian Institute of Technology in the island nation, citing a reason that contradicts the government’s expansion plans for IITs at home.

The ministries of human resource development and external affairs are finalising a letter to the Singapore government, where India will officially refuse to lend the IIT tag to an institution there.

India will say the IITs cannot, as a brand, ensure academic excellence in the Singapore facility as they are already struggling with shortage in qualified faculty and funds, top government officials have said.

The Singapore government had initially asked Delhi to set up and run a full-fledged IIT there. This was over three years ago.

Delhi was unwilling to bear the cost of setting up a new IIT, which would cater largely to non-Indian students. The HRD ministry argued that it could instead use the funds to build IITs in India — seven new institutes are now to be set up during the 11th Five-Year Plan.

Singapore then volunteered to bear most of the cost and said India would only need to provide IIT lecturers, course materials and research expertise.

But India has decided to reject even this proposal, instead offering to help improve standards at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the two top engineering institutes there.

IIT Bombay has already signed agreements for faculty and student exchange with the two universities.

“If NTU or NUS wants to start a fresh engineering school with our help, we can guide them. But that institute cannot be run by our IIT professors. They are already over-burdened,” a senior government official said. “Sharing the IIT brand is out of the question.”

But overload seems far from the government’s mind as it plans a three-fold increase in the number of seats in existing IITs.

An IIT director dismissed the government’s argument as “ridiculous”.

“I hope the government isn’t worrying about the jet lag we would face. Because apart from that, teaching three times more students here will be no easier than teaching students in Singapore or elsewhere. The argument is ridiculous,” he said.

According to sources, IITs strive for a student-teacher ratio of 9:1 but are currently managing with around 12 students to a teacher.

“The IITs are exclusive and top-quality because of the low student-teacher ratio. But we are struggling to recruit faculty of IIT standards to maintain the quality of teaching. A three-fold increase will only increase the burden on existing faculty further,” another IIT director said.