Over 40% of teaching posts in IITs are vacant: govt.

What is the News?

According to data provided by the Ministry of Education, Over 40% of teaching posts in all 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are vacant.

What are the key highlights from the data on vacancies in IIT?

Faculty from Reserved Categories

Only 12% of the teaching staff are from Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS). 

Note: As per the reservation policies, the SCs, STs, OBCs, and EWS should be provided with a reservation of 7.5%, 15%, 27% and 10% respectively. This would mean that ideally at least 59.5% of the faculty must be from reserved categories.

Vacancies Institutions wise

IIT Dhanbad had 57.2% of posts vacant, followed by 53.4% in IIT Kharagpur. 

IIT Delhi was the exception, with just 9.4% of the posts vacant. However, it had one of the lowest representations of faculty from reserved groups (6.5%). IIT Bombay had the poorest representation from reserved categories with just 3.8%.

How is the Government filling the vacancies in reserved categories?

The government is filling the vacancies in a mission mode under the reserved categories. However, recruitment has already come under criticism as the problems posed by the flexible cadre structure in IITs have not been addressed.

As per the flexible cadre structure, the sanctioned faculty strength is not fixed at each category, viz. assistant professors, associate professors and professors but only at the overall level.

Source:  This post is based on the article “Over 40% of teaching posts in IITs are vacant: govt” published in The Hindu on 9th Feb 2022.