Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, hosted a conference of all 31 NITs, called Co-NIT Meet 2015, which was held last week and was attended by over 100 delegates including deans and directors of the NITs.

India Education Diary reports that the major themes of discussion were:

– Reforms in NIT Governance,

– Enabling teaching & learning environments for the 21st century, and

– Developing ecosystems for research, innovation & entrepreneurship.

The Times of India reported that in order to meet the targets that the themes of discussion came up with, the NITs have demanded greater autonomy in functioning, especially in setting up and filling vacancies in the Boards of Governance (BOG) and Finance Committees (FC) of the NITs.

The Economic Times quotes MNIT director Prof. IK Bhatt as saying that the role of teachers in NITs should be transformed into mentors and help guide the future planners of the country to transform the nation.

What do you think? Should NITs get more autonomy than available to them currently? What would be the difference between an IIT and an NIT then? Would it improve the engineering teaching available to students at these institutes? Write your thoughts in comments below.