CHENNAI: In what might be a major setback to offshore Indian students aspiring to join premier technical educational institutions back home, including the National Institute of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIITs), the union education ministry is contemplating whether to continue the Direct Admission to Students Abroad (DASA) scheme.
The Council of National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research (NITSER) had constituted a four-member committee to submit a report in this regard during its tenth meeting held at Indian Institute of Advanced Sciences (IIAS), Shimla, on May 26.
The scheme, under which non-resident Indians, foreign nationals and persons with Indian origin have been gaining admission into select institutions since 2001, was expanded to 40 other premier, Centrally-sponsored technical institutes in 2012. At present, nearly 4,000 students are admitted under this quota in institutions across the country.
While Indian students were admitted into said courses through Joint Entrance Test (JEE)-Main examas, DASA quota students have to clear the Scholarship Aptitude Test (SAT) to gain admissions.
Directors of NITs, during the recent meet, had raised concerns over quality of students getting admission in their institutions through DASA. “They (NIT Directors) mentioned that getting admission in NITs through DASA is far easier than JEE (Main) and hence, students who are admitted are academically weak and find it difficult to cope up with academic pressure in NITs,” read the minutes of the meeting, a copy of which is available with Express.
“We had discussions as to whether DASA quota students should take up JEE or the council should increase the minimum cutoff score in SAT so that they become more suitable to study in NITs,” said Mini Shaji Thomas, director of NIT Trichy and one of four members in the working group.
Hence, NIT directors had raised the question of relevance of DASA. Union education minister Prakash Javedkar in the meet constituted a working group of NIT directors who will be submitting their report by this year end.
CWIG fees could also be revised
This working group has also been assigned the task of revising norms pertaining to tuition fee of Children of Indian Workers in Gulf Countries (CIWG) category under DASA.
One-third of DASA quota seats are reserved for CIWG, ie 5 per cent, within the 15 per cent supernumerary quota. Though other DASA candidates were charged 8,000 USD (approximately Rs 5.2 lakh) as tuition fee, CIWG were given concession.
Since many Indians working in CIWG countries may not be having adequate earning to pay the prescribed fees under DASA every year, children of parents whose income was below certain levels were allowed to pay tuition fees of Rs 1.25 lakh, at par with Indian students. Until last year, CIWG students had to pay 300 USD (approx Rs 19,300) as non-refundable registration fee, and 700 USD (Rs 45,000) in tuition costs for each semester. However, the Government hiked the tuition fee to 4,000 USD (Rs 2.57 lakh) for each semester. The issue of revising fee-related norms was taken up for discussion by the NITSER Council after protests from Gulf countries, opposing the steep hike in fees.
“It was decided that the Ministry may work out the level of income for deciding the exemption for students from CIWG countries,” read the minutes of the meeting. Thomas also said, “The Council didn’t agree to increase fees of CIWG students, as their parents were mostly workers with low educational qualifications, who toil hard all day for low wages.”