Panel for easing norms for teaching post

A parliamentary standing committee has asked the government to consider easing existing norms for recruitment of faculties if this could help fill up the teaching positions, laying vacant in higher educational institutions for long.

In its report tabled in the Parliament recently, the panel recommended that Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry must increase number of research fellowships and introduce new schemes for “teaching assistantship”.

With higher educational institutions citing lack of qualified teachers for non-filling of vacant posts, which ranges from 43 per cent to 82.85 per cent, the committee suggested that the ministry should evaluate the quality and standard of the PhD holders across the country to understand why a suitable candidate were difficult to find.

Expressing displeasure over the acute shortage of teachers, it said the HRD ministry must play a “proactive role” to expedite the filling up of the existing vacancies.

Apart from possibility of inadequate number of qualified teachers, the committee felt that there should be only two other reasons for the persistent shortage of faculties—either the country’s students are not attracted towards the teaching profession or the recruitment process is complex.

“In case the stricter norms for the appointment of faculty is coming in the way, the University Grants Commission (UGC) and other regulatory bodies should review them on regular basis and bring in necessary changes so as to fill up the vacant posts at the earliest,” the panel, headed by BJP MP Satyanarayan Jatiya, said.

To generate interest among students towards the teaching, the ministry should take steps to “enhance the prestige of the teaching profession”, it said.

“The committee would like to have an evaluation report, if any, about the quality and standard of the PhD holders across the country to understand why suitable candidates are difficult to find for the vacant positions. May be we need to re-orient the entire system of evaluation of PhD and other research scholars,” it added.  

The committee also examined the status of technical institutes run by the private entities and expressed concern over the lack of faculties as well as quality in such institutions, pulling up the government for “inaction”.

“Last year, the committee had recommended that an assessment may be made about the quality of faculty and its positions in private universities and institutions. However, the committee is at loss to find that no action has been taken in this regard so far,” it noted.