Centre draws flak over faculty crunch

Committee said the problem is becoming more serious day by day

A parliamentary standing committee has pulled up the government over faculty shortage in universities and colleges, noting that the problem was becoming “more serious day by day” and adversely affecting the country’s higher education system.

“Right from well-established central varsities to those set up recently, state and private universities, premier institutions like the IITs, NITs and IIMs, this problem has emerged as the biggest handicap with no visible solution in the near future,” the committee said in a report, which was tabled in Parliament recently.

Suggesting that the government should “accelerate” efforts to address the faculty crunch, the committee, headed by Congress Rajya Sabha MP Oscar Fernandes, noted that all steps taken to attract students to the teaching profession have failed.
According to a report submitted in 2011 by a government-appointed task force, faculty shortage in state, central and deemed universities and affiliated colleges was around 40 per cent, 35 per cent, 25 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.

Nearly 33 per cent of the sanctioned faculty positions is lying vacant in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and about 35 per cent in the National Institutes of Technology. In AICTE approved engineering colleges, the faculty shortage stands at 19.25 per cent, according to the Human Resource Development Ministry.

The committee, in its report on the Universities for Research and Innovation Bill, shared the apprehension of various stakeholders that problems may aggravate if the proposal to set up 14 new universities dedicated to innovation and research gets clearance from Parliament.

“With the proposed universities coming up, having better service conditions and higher pay scales for their teachers, migration of qualified and experienced teachers from traditional universities would definitely occur,” the committee noted. The department of higher education has to make concerted efforts so that the existing universities do not suffer because of the proposed universities, it added.

The committee was also convinced with the contention of various stakeholders that once the proposal to allow entry of foreign universities gets clearance from Parliament, it will add to the woes of Indian universities already reeling under faculty shortage.

“The committee has serious apprehensions about the problem of shortage of faculty being aggravated once the foreign universities set up their campuses in the country. 

With better opportunities, especially with respect to high remuneration for the faculty, there is high probability that the faculty in existing universities would be diverted to the foreign universities,” the committee said. The idea to allow foreign universities through a proposed legislation, which is pending before Parliament, should be deliberated before taking a final call. “The pros and cons of the proposed Bill needed to be considered beforehand,” the committee suggested.