Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar bagged the University of the Year award in the category of universities in existence for 11-30 years, at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) Higher Education Excellence Awards 2021 ceremony. The three-day Ficci Higher education summit was held between February 25 and February 27.

There were 11 categories of awards in this 7th edition of the event and the awards were announced on February 25 at the 16th Ficci Higher Education Summit 2021. The jury comprised an eminent panel of experts chaired by Prof R.A. Mashelkar.

Director, IIT, Professor R.V. Raja Kumar said, “IIT Bhubaneswar has been trying to offer holistic education to its students of a standard at par with the cream of global class institutions by bringing in academic excellence through several unique pedagogical and operational reforms.

“The sudden onset of the pandemic posed us a lot of challenges in fulfilling the self-imposed commitment and the Institute had to bring in right innovative processes required for offering education which is not compromised or affected by the pandemic.”

Raja Kumar said: “Some of the distinguished and unique innovative initiatives, the Institute could bring in include coming out with a method for conducting pen and paper comprehensive examinations by online with online invigilation by faculty members (for which there is no commercial product available) for evaluating the student learning and applying the same successfully right from the beginning of the lockdown, including conducting end semester exams online for the last academic year.”

He further said: “The institute has switched to online education with zero gap at the onset of lockdown and protected the whole campus.”