The NITs along with the IITs receive comparatively higher grants than other engineering colleges in India. Average NIT funding increased to 100 crores ($15.4 million) by 2011. On average, each NIT also receives 20-25 crore ($3-3.8 million) under World Bank funded
Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP I and TEQIP II). Other sources of funds include student fees and research funding from industry and contributions from the alumni. The faculty-to-student ratio in the NITs is between 1:7 and 1:9. The cost borne by undergraduate students is around 250,000 (~$3600) per annum. After students from SC and ST categories, physically challenged students will now be the beneficiaries of fee waiver at the NITs in India. The various NITs function autonomously, and their special status as
Institutes of National Importance facilitates the smooth running of NITs, virtually free from both regional as well as a student
politics. Such autonomy means that NITs can create their own
curricula and adapt rapidly to the changes in educational requirements, free from bureaucratic hurdles. The medium of instruction in all NITs is English. The classes are usually held between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm, though there are some variations within each NIT. All the NITs have public libraries for the use of their students. In addition to a collection of prescribed books, the libraries have sections for fiction and other
literary genres. Electronic libraries allow students access to online journals and other periodicals through the
AICTE-INDEST consortium, an initiative by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Students also have access to
IEEE documents and journals. The academic policies of each NIT are decided by its
Senate. This comprises all professors of the NIT and student representatives. Unlike many western universities that have an elected senate, the NITs have an academic senate. It controls and approves the curriculum, courses, examinations and results, and appoints committees to look into specific academic matters. The teaching, training and research activities of the institute are periodically reviewed by the senate to maintain educational standards. The
Director of NIT is the ex-officio Chairman of the Senate. Stringent faculty recruitment and industry collaboration also contribute to NIT success. Faculty other than lecturers must have a
DTech and relevant teaching and industry experience. Existing faculty who do not meet these criteria enroll under a Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) at
IITs and
IISc. |right All the NITs follow the credits system of performance evaluation, with a proportional weighting of courses based on their importance. The total marks (usually out of 100) form the basis of
grades, with a grade value (out of 10) assigned to a range of marks. Sometimes, relative grading is done considering the overall performance of the whole class. For each semester, the students are graded on a scale of 0 to 10 based on their performance, by taking a weighted average of the grade points from all the courses, with their respective credit points. Each semester evaluation is done independently and then the weighted average overall semesters is used to calculate the cumulative
grade point average (CGPA).
Undergraduate education The
Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree is the most common undergraduate degree in the NITs in terms of student enrollment. The BTech course is based on a 4-year programme with eight semesters, while the Dual Degree and Integrated courses are 5-year programmes with ten semesters. In all NITs, the first year of BTech and Dual Degree courses are marked by a common course structure for all the students, though in some NITs, a single department introduction related course is also included. The common courses include the basics from most of the departments like electronics, mechanics, chemistry, electrical, and physics. At the end of the first year, some NITs offer an option to the meritorious students to change departments on the basis of their performance in the first two semesters. Few such changes ultimately take place as the criteria for them are usually strict, limited to the most meritorious students. Few NITs also offer 5-year
Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) and 4-year
Bachelor of Science (BSc) degrees. From the second year onwards, the students study subjects exclusively from their respective departments. In addition to these, the students have to take compulsory advanced courses from other departments in order to broaden their education. Separate compulsory courses from
humanities and
social sciences department, and sometimes management courses are also enforced. In the last year of their studies, most of the students are placed into industries and organisations via the placement process of the respective NIT, though some students opt out of this either when going for higher studies or when they take up jobs by applying to the companies directly.
Postgraduate and doctoral education Master degrees The NITs offer a number of postgraduate programmes including
Master of Technology (MTech),
Master of Business Administration (MBA),
Master of Science (MSc) and
Master of Computer Applications (MCA). Some of the NITs offer an M.S. (by research) programme; the MTech and M.S. are similar to the US universities' non-thesis (course-based) and thesis (research-based) masters programmes respectively. Admissions to masters programmes in engineering are made using scores of the
Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), while those to masters programmes in science are made using scores of the
Joint Admission Test to MSc (JAM). 15 NITs, including NIT Allahabad, NIT Bhopal, IIEST Shibpur , NIT Calicut, NIT Hamirpur, NIT Jaipur, NIT Jalandhar, NIT Kurukshetra, NIT Rourkela, NIT Silchar, NIT Karnataka, NIT Warangal, NIT Durgapur, NIT Tiruchirappalli, and NIT Agartala have separate departments or schools of management offering master's degrees in management or business administration. Additionally, NIT Arunachal Pradesh also offers an Online MBA programme and an M.Tech. in Appropriate Technology and Entrepreneurship, which is perhaps the only one among the NITs.
Bachelors-Masters dual degrees The NITs also offer an unconventional BTech and MTech integrated educational programme called "Dual Degree". It integrates undergraduate and postgraduate studies in selected areas of specialisation. It is completed in five years as against six years in conventional BTech (four years) followed by an MTech (two years). Integrated Master of Science programmes is also offered at few NITs which integrates the Undergraduate and Postgraduate studies in Science streams in a single degree programme against the conventional university system. These programmes were started to allow NITians to complete postgraduate studies from NIT rather than having to go to another institute.
NIT Rourkela,
IIEST Shibpur , SVNIT Surat (NIT Surat)and NIT Agartala have such systems..
Doctoral degrees The NITs also offer the Doctor of Technology degree (D.Tech.) as part of their
doctoral education programme. In it, the candidates are given a topic of academic interest by the professor or have to work on a consultancy project given by the industries. The duration of the programme is usually unspecified and depends on the specific discipline. DTech candidates have to submit a
dissertation as well as provide an oral defence for their thesis.
Teaching Assistantships (TA) and
Research Assistantships (RA) are often provided. The NITs, along with IITs and IISc, account for nearly 80% of all engineering PhDs in India. == Campus life ==