New Delhi: Moves by the Centre to alter status quo at the IITs and IIMs have caused consternation among stakeholders of the premier institutions, according to reports.At the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), teachers and officials are “worried” about the decision to introduce BTech programmes in Indian languages from the next academic year.The education ministry on November 26 announced that said the IITs and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) would offer BTech courses in the “mother tongue”, starting with Hindi courses in IIT Banaras Hindu University.Currently, the tech schools teach BTech courses only in English.Among the issues that officials at the institutes have cited are “possible damage to these premier tech schools’ brand image” and problems relating to infrastructure, teacher training and the students’ career possibilities, according to The Telegraph.Academics and retired professors have also flagged the lack of books and terminology related to engineering in the Indian languages.The Centre’s decision would mean that at least three courses – computer science, electronics and civil engineering – would be offered in the principal language of the state in which a particular IIT is located.Each IITs would have to create 50 extra seats for students who will be taught in the regional language.“There’s huge worry (over the government decision) within the IIT system,” an official who did not wish to be quoted told The Telegraph. “The brightest students will not want to enrol in the regional language courses. This will hurt the IITs’ national character and their brand image as quality institutions.”The official added that “many students” who take their board exams in their mother tongue perform well at the IITs despite being instructed in English.“But if learning in English is not difficult for these students, learning to teach in the regional language could prove difficult for the faculty,” he told the newspaper.Also Read: How Meritorious and Inclusive Are Our Institutions of Higher Education?Another official cited issued with the budget, saying adding 50 extra seats would mean a nearly 8% increase in the student strength. With the IITs adding 25% seats over the past two years to implement the Economically Weaker Sections reservation, they are in need of more funds to expand facilities. “The government has allocated only Rs 429 crore for them this year to expand their facilities to accommodate the quota, whereas they need more than Rs 20,000 crore,” the official told The Telegraph.“The 25 per cent increase in seats has caused a shortage of hostel berths, which the 50 extra seats will aggravate,” he said. “Besides, we need to expand our laboratory and classroom facilities and recruit more teachers. But no expansion is happening on any front.”Sunil Mukhi, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, said if the objective is to ensure that bright students who may not be comfortable in English can access the IITs, the idea is “nice”. “But it involves certain challenges. Are the teachers trained enough to teach (in the regional languages)? Will the government provide funds to train them?” he asked.Meanwhile, another report in The Telegraph pointed out that the Centre’s decision comes at a time when countries like Japan, China and Germany – which pioneered education in local languages – are moving away from the model.IIT Delhi. Photo courtesy: IIT Delhi websiteMove to limit IIM’s autonomy?Three years after granting autonomy to the 20 premier business schools under the IIM Act, the Centre has now moved to empower the government to initiate an inquiry against the Board of Governors (BoG) of an institute if it is found to be acting “in contravention of the Act”, according to a report in the Indian Express.The education ministry shared a “draft executive order” with the law ministry to this effect. The order will be issued under Section 38 of the IIM Act, which states, “If any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act, the Central Government may, by order published in the Official Gazette, make such provisions not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, as may appear to it to be necessary or expedient for removing the difficulty.”The Act gave the education ministry a three-year window to take action under this section, with will expire on January 31, 2021.The proposal comes amid the standoff between the Centre and institutes of over the latter’s one-year MBA degree programme. While the ministry had in July red-flagged the one-year executive MBA degree offered by IIMs, saying that it is “not in accordance” with the University Grants Commission regulations which mandate that a master’s degree should be of two years.After the IIM Act came into effect, some IIMs had converted their one-year diploma for working professionals into a degree programme.Before the Act was passed, the Prime Minister’s Office and the education ministry disagreed on how much government control should be retained over the institutes. While the ministry stuck by its stand under Smriti Irani between October 2015 and September 2016, it yielded after Prakash Javadekar became the minister in July 2016.