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The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras is making history by not only establishing its first international campus – IIT Madras Zanzibar – but also by appointing the first ever female principal across IITs.
Professor Preeti Aglayam, who is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Madras, has been appointed as Head of the Zanzibar Campus. With the campus only a few months away from its debut, Indianexpress.com She talks to Professor Aglaiam about the new adventure, her role, scholarship, conquering a male-dominated society, and more.
IE: IIT Zanzibar is the first IIT outside India, what challenges have you and the team faced so far, and challenges you anticipate in the future?
Preeti Aglayam: This is completely uncharted territory for us. I think the biggest challenge was that we set ourselves a fairly strict schedule because we were careful to fit it in with the academic calendar here. This means that our classes on the new campus should also begin by October.
This is a very compressed schedule, especially considering that there is student selection, faculty deployment, discussion and approval of courses with experts, and more. It’s amazing and sometimes I wonder how we manage to do so many of these things. From several ministerial discussions, from the recent signing of the Memorandum of Understanding to having discussions with our counterparts and our team in Zanzibar, I think it is best to frame them not as challenges, but as opportunities.
Looking into the future, there will be a lot of challenges. Fortunately, we have a (temporary) campus in Zanzibar. We hold regular meetings with our team in Zanzibar; There are many things you still need to take care of such as housing for students and faculty, catering facilities, getting students here and making sure that visa paperwork is done in a timely manner for us and the students. Those are some of the details, and I’m sure there will be bigger challenges, and we’re trying to anticipate and plan for them in advance. The IIT Madras team, our team in Zanzibar and the government are working together to plan a bright future for this campus.
IE: When is the IIT Zanzibar Permanent Campus expected to be completed?
Preeti Aglayam: As of now, we have a temporary campus and the permanent campus will take some time. We are building this new campus on 200 acres of land from scratch and plan to complete it in another three years. Meanwhile, the application process will end on August 6.
IE: What are the admission criteria for IIT Zanzibar Campus? Do students need to pass the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for this?
Preeti Aglayam: This is a new area and while JEE works for India, people here don’t know about JEE at all. To seek admission into the IIT Madras Zanzibar Campus, students must have passed their basic class 12 education – which can be from international board, CBSE, state boards etc. – after which there will be a screening test and interview round for selection.
Back when IITs started in the 50’s and 60’s, interviews were an important part of the admissions process and although this is not widely possible now in India, it is possible in the new campuses. I feel interviews are a good way to get to know the candidate. For the locals here, we’ve replaced Class 12 eligibility with what they call “Sixth Form.”
IE: What will the class ratio look like, in terms of both Indian and international students?
Preeti Aglayam: Now, this is open. We’ll see in our process what that’s going to be, and that will be considered depending on how things go in the future, but as of right now, there’s no set quota.
IE: What are the tuition fees and housing cost for the IIT Zanzibar Campus?
Preeti Aglayam: Tuition for an undergraduate program is $12,000 per year, and maybe $3,000-4,000 for on-site accommodation. For a master’s program, as is usual in our system, the tuition fee is lower, which will be around 4000 USD.
The operating expenses of this institution come from the local government because it funds it. However, other IITs were built in the 50’s and 60’s, and we’re building this one in 2023, so there are bound to be some differences (in cost). Obviously, this type of tuition fee is very competitive with what you might spend in the UK or the US. It is also commensurate with what many engineering students spend in private institutions in India. We have had discussions and discussions with experts to come up with this number, considering all aspects.
IE: …and are there any scholarships for students who will be accepted into the new campus?
Preeti Aglayam: As the President of Zanzibar is aware that IITs are very competitive, he has announced that the top rated Zanzibar students will get a good scholarship on his part. We expect similar scholarship from mainland Tanzania as well. As of now, we only have these but we are looking for more such opportunities.
IE: What will the curriculum at IIT Zanzibar look like?
Preeti Aglayam: We believe in a combination of different types of courses – electives, humanities, and social science-based electives – that broaden students’ horizons. We have core subjects that are more core in nature, elective courses where students have a bit of freedom to explore their own interests. We will also have an experiential work and learning project. Good proportions of each of these should be present in the school curriculum.
The entire program structure has been scrutinized by the experts of IIT Madras. The principles underlying the program are the same as IIT Madras, but each course to be taught at the Zanzibar Campus has been separately discussed and approved by experts. For example, there is a Bachelor of Science degree in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence which will only be offered at the Zanzibar campus so far.
IE: …and will the college be entirely from India?
Preeti Aglayam: We are now looking at delegating full time faculty members from IIT Madras, myself included. In terms of the Head of Academic Programs and a few tutors, we are looking at faculty members from India because we want to start off strong.
Having said that, we have posted an advertisement for the recruitment of young faculty members with suitable qualifications, in contract positions, and we have already had some contact from recently retired faculty members as well.
In addition, governments on both sides have come together to help with this. The Government of India has provided scholarships to many qualified people locally, to come to China and do Masters and PhD programs with us, which will also help them imbue with the culture of IIT Madras. Every year, we’ll have a group of people go from the beach to Chennai, sort of as a unit, to train themselves there because we have so many programs going on at IIT-Madras, that it’s not possible to bring all of them here. So, people can go to the Chennai campus to get scholarships for training.
IE: If the syllabus is almost the same, the faculty will be brought from Chennai and the degree will be from IIT Madras, then why should the students travel to Zanzibar instead of heading to the Chennai campus?
Preeti Aglayam: The most important thing is to consider the class groups here, the group of peers that the students will rub shoulders with in terms of quality will be the same but diversity in the classroom will help the student grow further.
Earlier, students would go abroad for postgraduate studies only after obtaining an undergraduate degree. I even went for the masters and beyond, not before. But things are changing now. Students are now heading abroad directly from the undergraduate level. Therefore, we believe it will be an attractive opportunity for engineering students to head to Zanzibar and experience this unique opportunity. In addition, there are many problems in Zanzibar that need scientific solutions and our students will be able to come and work on real life problems as well.
IE: You are the first female director of IIT, what has the journey been like in this male-dominated industry?
Preeti Aglayam: I am the producer of IIT Madras. I am a bit loud and argumentative but they know me as a person who cares a lot about IIT Madras and who has put the institute before anything else. I have very broad interests like being a runner, blogging, teaching, and more. Given this, I believe the institute has trusted me with this responsibility. A lot of the time, it’s secondary because I’m a woman. Many of my peers are my closest friends, and I believe that in academics you have to build a level of friendship with your peers to survive in this field.
I also come from a family of teachers. My grandfather was the longtime founding member of the school, my father was a chemistry professor and my hard work comes from my mother seeing her sitting overtime at night and getting up early to complete her PhD when I was in my high school. These are the roots that have helped me reach this level and my husband – whom I met at IIT Madras – has also been a very big support.
Women are in the minority in this industry, but things are slowly changing. It is important for women to be able to stand their ground in this world of men and to be in leadership positions. I’m happy myself, but I know that if we look at our species in general, it’s not enough for a few of us to be given a title or opportunity. It must broaden the base, both in numbers and in the agency given to us. We are equal to men, but the opportunities we reach, in our minds and what is expressed to us in our families in terms of aspirations, there should be no turning back. It’s a difficult change, but one we need.
I am a supporter of women in STEM and at IIT Madras we have done a number of things hoping that it will help women in the institute on this journey, and we will bring some of these actions to the new campus as well.
Another good thing is that gender representation in Zanzibar is good. You can see the women in senior positions here. Things get easier when the community actually takes the primitive steps.
IE: In the past, it has been talked about how IIT campuses can be a little unsafe for women, because they are not in the majority. Are there any specific measures being taken to eliminate this problem in IIT Zanzibar campuses?
Preeti Aglayam: The first benefit is that women are ubiquitous here and have agency, but there is an expectation of some measures which are perfectly normal, such as the difference in sexes in student dormitories. The Ministry of Health also visited the new campus of the small healthcare center we are building here, and people from the human resources department are also helping us with that.
Security is a top priority, not only for women but in general as well. There is a large Indian population here, and that is also in our favour. The crime rate is very low in Zanzibar. I remember passing a prison here and my driver told me it was less densely populated because of the lower crime rate. We are well aware of that.
IE: Have you received partnership applications from foreign universities?
Preeti Aglayam: We have had many contacts from different foreign universities for this project. The African School of Economics wants to partner with us because they bring the strength of the social sciences and collaborate well with the engineering, science and technology we have. It’s a large institution and they’re building a new campus near our campus here. We joked that like the small town of Cambridge, Massachusetts has Harvard and MIT, we would grow the African School of Economics and IIT and help bring that level of education to this island.
We’ve had a few other contacts from different institutions who would like to work with us and we’re reaching out to our alumni network as well. We’ll sit down and take stock and put things together nicely. We want to organize, for example, the Semester Exchange Study Abroad Program for Zanzibar Campus students with our partners.
By now, it is likely that the University of Birmingham will immediately join the Board and at least five or 10 other such institutions, from which we will draw on all the relationships we have established at IIT-M to ensure that students have access to various opportunities.
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