Engineering Education

The Hindu : Education / Issues : Where have engineering teachers gone?: Higher education in the country, particularly engineering education, is facing a crisis. It is pulling on with half the teacher strength it requires. The government pressed a red button the other day when it was revealed in Parliament that the country faced a shortage of more than 3,00,000 teachers in its institutions of higher learning. In engineering education alone, the shortage is more than 1,50,000.

This finding revealed in the most recent government assessment of faculty shortage across the country has come as a shock. What is more shocking is the increase in the faculty shortage to 54 per cent from the 40 per cent a few years ago. The government has swung into action by allowing institutions to hire expatriate Indians to make up for the shortage. The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development has permitted the 15 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), premier engineering institutes in the country, to appoint non-resident Indians (NRIs) and people of Indian origin (PIOs) as permanent faculty as part of measures to tide over the teacher shortage. Foreign nationals, however, are not allowed permanent appointment.

But is this move a solution? Experts call it inadequate.

The Lok Sabha was told last week that 1,693 teachers were required immediately for the 15 IITs and 1,522 for the 30 National Institutes of Technology (NITs). But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

From 30 per cent to 50 per cent of the teaching posts are lying vacant in the country’s top engineering institutions. The situation is worse in hundreds of private self-financing colleges...