1225 highly qualified graduates from premier institutions placed in backward areas to improve quality of technical education

To fulfil the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide thrust to good quality technical and higher education in the backward areas of the country, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has recruited more than 1200 highly qualified and motivated graduates from including IITs and NITs to teach in Engineering Colleges in States/UTs like Andaman & Nicobar, Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tripura, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand etc. This is the first time that such a measure has been taken to improve the quality of education.

While addressing a press conference Union Minister for Human Resource Development Shri Prakash Javadekar said that these bright minds will bring with them the openness to innovation, new methods of teaching and enthusiasm to serve and act as agents of change. He further said that this initiative will help meet the aspirations of youth in the backward areas and fulfil the vision of Prime Minister. He hoped that these teachers would contribute to the entire educational eco-system of the backward areas, apart from promoting a start-up culture among students.

A public appeal was given to the MTech and PhD students from the premier institutions to express interest to work in these backward areas and serve the nation. There was an overwhelming response to the call, and more than 5000 highly qualified persons applied. The interviews were conducted in 20 NITs by constituting expert teams.

The entire process of giving a call and selection has been completed through a competitive and rigorous process of selection done through NITs in a record 2-month period. Finally, 1225 candidates were selected and they have joined 53 colleges in these states. The new faculty will train the youngsters in host of technical institutions for the next 3-years.

Each of the new faculty will be paid Rs. 70,000 per month and the Government is planning to spend about Rs. 375 Cr in 3-year period on this initiative. With this measure, more than 1 lakh engineering students in the most backward areas would be benefited with better quality education.

The reason for backwardness was essentially because of lack of quality teachers in these areas. In many of these institutions have vacancies of teaching faculty (some of them have 40% vacancies), The States have requested Ministry of HRD to help to find teaching support.

TEQIP project

MHRD started the Technical Education Quality Improvement Project (TEQIP-III) for improving the quality of engineering graduates at a cost of Rs. 2,300 Cr to be implemented in 3-year period till 2020. The focus is on the most-backward states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, North-East, Rajasthan, MP etc.

Under this project, all the Government engineering colleges are selected for direct intervention, and all private engineering colleges are selected for indirect intervention.

The measures include:

Institution based: accreditation of the courses through NBA, governance reforms, improving the processes, digital initiatives, securing autonomy for the colleges.

Student based: improving the quality of teaching, teacher training, equipping the class rooms, revision of syllabus, industry interaction, compulsory internships for students, training the students in industry-relevant skills, preparing them for the GATE exam etc.

Profile of the teachers selected

86% of the teachers are from premier institutions like IITs/NITs/IISERs/IIITs

24% of them are PhDs (in most of these institutions, so far, there are NO PhD teachers)

Due to PAN India selection, the selected faculty are coming from 369 districts of 26 states, bringing an All India character to these backward colleges.

(115) of these best faculty are going to (7) Aspiring Districts.

Highest Qualification-wise

Highest qualification PhD : 293

Highest qualification Masters : 932

Total : 1225

Institution(graduated)-wise

(a) PhD from IIT/IISc/NITs/IISERs/IIITs : 262

(b) PhD from other institutions : 31

Total (PhD): 293

(c) Masters from IIT/IISc/NITs/IISERs/IIITs : 788

(d) Masters from other institutions : 144

Total (Masters): 932

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