Inter-IIT exchanges for 5% BTech students on the cards; IIT Madras to plan credit transfer with NITs, CFTIs

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are planning for 5% of their students to participate in student exchanges within the IIT system, show minutes of the latest IIT Council meeting. IIT Madras will design a “flexible credit-sharing framework” to facilitate such movement between IITs and other centrally-funded institutions.

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This initiative is part of the implementation of the National Credit Framework (NCrF) and beyond that, the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) which pushes for such flexibility. The IIT Council met last summer but the minutes were public online in January, 2026.

IIT Madras will lead the “inter-IIT” team, along with non-IITs, such as the National Institutes of Technology (NIT), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER), National Law Universities (NLU) and others.

Once introduced, the system will allow some students of one IIT to pursue courses in others and transfer credits back to the parent institution.

IITs adopting credit framework

The IIT Council had approved the adoption of NCrF across 23 IITs in 2023 to facilitate earning, transfer and accumulation of credits by students. According to the IIT Council minutes, a meeting was held between dean academics of all IITs at IIT Madras to discuss the strategies “advancing NCF objectives and enabling greater academic flexibility”.

The council recommended that all IITs target “5% of undergraduate student exchange across IITs, ensuring smooth credit transfer for courses taken at other IITs”, say the minutes.

During the meeting, the council agreed that “student mobility and credit sharing are critical to fostering academic diversity and experiential learning”. It was also suggested that IITs must take “proactive steps to implement structured targets for student exchange and develop mechanisms for seamless credit transfer across institutions, including technical institutions”.

IIT Madras was given six months to develop the framework.