Norms may be relaxed for appointment of IIT faculty: Sibal

Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal has said norms could be relaxed in “exceptional cases”, while making direct appointments to the IIT faculty instead of contractual appointments as prescribed by the ministry.

“The norm is that a person with PhD, who does not have teaching and research experience, should be on contract for three years. “However, if the IIT board wants or IIT directors recommend to the board reduction of the contract period for certain exceptional cases, we would not interfere in that,”said Sibal. The minister’s comments came against the backdrop of IIT faculty opposing the provision of contractual appointment at entry level in the institutes. The IIT faculty has been demanding that PhD holders should not be appointed on contract. Sibal said people could be taken on tenure at the outset if they were exceptional cases. However, IITs would have to set a uniform standard for that. It should not be done arbitrarily, he said. Asked whether there could be relaxation to the compulsory four-year experience, as required at associate professor level for promotion to professorship, Sibal said government would never interfere with the IIT system to absorb exceptional cases at any stage.