According to the Ministry of Education data, over 40% of the teaching jobs at 23 IITs are vacant. It doesn’t matter that the government has set aside 7.5 percent of teacher jobs for people from reserved groups, 15 percent for people with disabilities, and 27 percent for people from other groups. Only 3.8 percent of faculty at IIT Bombay are from reserved groups. This is the worst IIT in terms of having faculty from reserved groups. IIT Delhi is also bad at this, with only 6.5 percent of its faculty being reserved.
Key Highlight:
- During the Lok Sabha, the education ministry answered a question from Congress MP Sashi Tharoor. The Hindu reports that the ministry said that over 40% of the teaching positions at the 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are vacant.
- Education Ministry data shows there are 4,370 vacant faculty positions at the IITs. The data shows 6,511 teachers at the IITs, but there are 4,370 vacant positions. This is because the government is trying to fill these positions with people from the reserved Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backwards Classes (OBC) and economically weaker sections (EWS).
- Only 3.8 percent of faculty at IIT Bombay are from reserved groups. This is the worst IIT in terms of having faculty from reserved groups.
- Even though there aren’t many jobs available, IIT Delhi is also bad at this. Only 6.5 percent of its faculty are in the “reserved category.”
- In 2020, a group of eight people appointed by the government said that IITs should be exempt from the reservation rules, saying that diversity should be addressed through outreach programs and targeted faculty hiring, not quotas.
During the Lok Sabha, the education ministry answered a question from Congress MP Sashi Tharoor. The Hindu reports that the ministry said that over 40% of the teaching positions at the 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are vacant.
Tharoor’s question asked about vacancies, faculty-student ratios, and the steps to fill the vacancies.
Education Ministry data shows there are 4,370 vacant faculty positions at the IITs. The data shows 6,511 teachers at the IITs, but there are 4,370 vacant positions. This is because the government is trying to fill these positions with people from the reserved Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backwards Classes (OBC) and economically weaker sections (EWS).
It says that in Dhanbad, 57.2 percent of jobs are vacant, in Kharagpur, 53.4 percent are vacant, and in Delhi, 9.4 percent are vacant. This is based on a report.
In addition, the data showed that only 12 percent of the 6,511 teachers in this group are in this group. This is despite the government’s reservation policy which requires 7.5 percent of teaching positions be reserved for people from SCs, 10 percent for EWS, 15 percent for STs and 27 percent for OBCs. This would bring the total number of reserve-category faculty members to 59.5 percent, which is what it should be.
Only 3.8 percent of faculty at IIT Bombay are from reserved groups. This is the worst IIT in terms of having faculty from reserved groups. Even though there aren’t many jobs available, IIT Delhi is also bad at this. Only 6.5 percent of its faculty are in the “reserved category.”
This law was passed last year, and it makes it easier for people from certain groups to get jobs at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).
Reservation was used mostly for jobs for junior faculty members, like assistant professors, but after the ministry told some IITs to start looking for reserved-category candidates for more senior jobs, too, many IITs started advertising for candidates from the reserved category.
On the other hand, the government’s decision reopened the debate on the reservation. Sources inside the IITs said that, in part, the reservation was causing vacancies at the IITs.
IITs used to fill jobs meant for reserved-category candidates with candidates from the general category if not enough reserved-category candidates applied for the jobs. This was changed in 2019 by law.
In 2020, a group of eight people appointed by the government said that IITs should be exempt from the reservation rules, saying that diversity should be addressed through outreach programs and targeted faculty hiring, not quotas. However, the Indian government didn’t follow the panel’s advice.
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