Over 10,000 faculty positions are vacant in central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Education minister, Mr Dharmendra Pradhan told the Parliament on Wednesday.
Of the total 10,814 vacancies, 6,535 are in central universities including the Indira Gandhi National Open University, 403 in IIMs and 3,876 are in IITs, the minister stated in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
According to data put out by the Ministry of Education in 2019, there were 8,856 teaching positions across 23 IITs in the country of which 2,813 had not been filled. The number has now gone up to 3,876 posts, the minister informed on Wednesday.
The condition in 20 Indian Institutes of Management is also a cause of concern.
Of the 1,148 sanctioned faculty in 20 IIMs, the number of vacant posts is 403, the government informed the Rajya Sabha. It may be recalled that data shared by the Education ministry early this year showed that nearly 74 per cent posts were lying vacant in IIMs.
In a reply to the Parliament in 2019, the ministry had said that out of the total 17,092 sanctioned teaching posts in 40 central universities as of 1 April, 2018 — 5,606 teaching posts were lying vacant.
Not just this, there was no change in the previous trend of ‘diversity deficit’ which reflected that, the number of professors belonging to Scheduled Castes /Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Class, in IITs and IIMs remains below the standard reservation policy.
It is worth noting that the Constitution mandates at least 15 per cent seats for SCs, 7.5 per cent for STs and 27 per cent for OBCs in government jobs.
The data shared in the Parliament shows that IIMs have only five ST professors, 27 SC professors and 45 OBC faculty members.
It further states that IITs have only 32 professors under posts reserved for Schedule Tribes category, 183 professors under vacancies reserved for Schedule Caste category and 462 professors under the OBC category.
In central universities, there are 576 ST professors, 1,282 SC professors, and 1,648 OBC professors.
