NEW DELHI: The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will start mentoring at least five engineering colleges in their respective regions in a bid to raise the standard of engineering education, the Council of IITs has decided. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar also announced that the IIT-PAL video lectures to help students prepare for the JEE (Advanced) exam would be made available online.

These were among the outcomes of the meeting of the 52nd Council of IITs that was held in New Delhi on Monday. Speaking at the event, Union Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said IIT-PAL lecture videos would be made available on the Swayam self-learning portal with extended handholding support. IIT-PAL, which stands for Professor Assisted Learning, is a series of video lectures that are aimed at helping students prepare for JEE (Advanced) entrance examinations.

According to a statement from the government, the key decisions made at the council meeting included:

- IITs will mentor at least five engineering colleges located in its vicinity in order to improve the quality and standard of engineering education in the country.

- There will be no revision in tuition fee for undergraduate students.

- The Board of Governors of each individual IIT would be empowered to fix the fees for international students.

- No changes needed for now in the JEE (Advanced) system.

- IITs will organize annual tech fests to showcase innovations and technologies developed on their campuses to business leaders from both the private and public sectors.

- A committee has been set up to recommend standards and norms for the construction of campuses and infrastructure for IITs, including news ones. The committee will be made up of the directors of IIT-Delhi, IIT-Hyderabad and IIT-Tirupati.