40% shortage of faculty at IITs, central varsities: Javadekar

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar today said there are 40 per cent vacancies of faculty members in central universities and IITs.
He observed that the process of recruitment needs to be streamlined in order to bring in good faculty members.
"We too can offer world class facilities and infrastructure to the students here, but there are constraints. We do not have faculties. There are 40 per cent vacancies in Central Universities and IITs," the minister said.
He was addressing an International conference on 'The Changing Landscape of Internationalisation of Higher Education', organised by the Symboisis International University in collaboration with the Association of Indian Universities.

"I have asked IIT councils to go abroad and contact our research students, who have gone there to pursue further research and they too are ready to come back and serve the country," said Javadekar.
He said that though all these research students are ready to come back and serve the country, but the process of recruitment is "troublesome" in the Central universities and institutes.

"In order to bring good faculties, we need to streamline the process of recruitment. If we do not have enough faculties, we cannot have good enough students," he said, adding that in some universities, one professor is guiding 40 Ph.D students.

Talking about establishing 20 world-class universities (ten each in private and public sectors) in the country, the minister stated that the world class universities are "not all about title."
"We will not give them title of world class. They will have to earn it with the kind of roadmap they plan to become the world class universities," he said.
Javadekar said that the final offer for registration for those institutes who aspire to be world class and come in the "category of 10 private and 10 public sector institutes", will be issued very soon.
"Establishing world class universities is not a one-day wonder, (rather) the programme will be going on for one or two decades, which will be based on quality inputs and quality outputs, and after that the institutions will be ranked world class," he said.

During his speech, the minister stressed that the interaction between Indian and international students in higher education is "very important in the globalised economy."
"We will improve our quality for our own students and with that improved quality, we will also bring other students from all over the world," Javadekar added.
On the occasion, UGC chairman Prof Ved Prakash, EU delegation to India's Deputy Head Cesare Onestini, UGC Member Dr D P Singh, NAAC Director Prof. D S Chauhan, AIU President Prof Furqan Qamar, Association of Indian Universities (AIU) Secretary General Dr SB Mujumdar, Symbiosis International University Chancellor Dr Vidya Yeravdekar, and others were present.

A recommendation of the round-table discussion held among various stake-holders of the higher education at Symbiosis varsity here on April 8 at on the theme of 'Building World Class Universities', was submitted to the HRD minister.