The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed a bill declaring the 15 existing IIITs, established through public-private partnership, as institutions of national importance, enabling them to grant degrees.
Education was not an issue of political partisanship, said Human Resource Minister Prakash Javadekar in his reply to the debate over the the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (Public-Private Partnership) Bill, 2017.
"Education is not an issue for party politics. It is an issue of national policy," Javadekar said.
The statement of objects and reasons of the bill states that the IIITs set up in public-private partnership mode are required to be given statutory status and enable the institutes to grant degrees to their students.
"As the students of five existing Indian Institutes of Information Technology would be completing their graduation in July and August, 2017, there is an urgent need to confer statutory status upon such institutes," it said.
The minister also said that an effort was being made to fill vacancies in various higher educational institutions.
Javadekar said that vacancies related to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes had not been fulfilled in the Jawaharlal Nehru University for the past 10 years and these were being filled now.