Around 35% shortfall of teachers in 23 IITs: RTI

Current teacher-student ratio in IITs stood at 1:16, says Union HRD ministry

Around 35 per cent posts of teachers are lying vacant in 23 IITs across the country, an RTI query has revealed.

"As against sanctioned strength of 7,744 teachers, 5,072 teachers are teaching 82,603 students in 23 IITs. This means 2,672 posts are lying vacant which is 35 per cent," Neemuch-based activist Chandrashekhar Gaud told PTI today citing a reply from an official in Union HRD ministry.

The break-up was given till October 1, 2016.

Gaud said the current teacher-student ratio in IITs stood at 1:16 though these institutes are trying to achieve the 1:10 ratio.

Meanwhile, "Super 30" founder Anand Kumar said, "the government opened new IITs in the last couple of years in a haste, but has failed to provide necessary infrastructure like laboratories etc. This is affecting the quality of these IITs, which lin long term could affect the brand IIT at global level."

According to Gaud, the old IITs too are affected by the shortage of teachers.

"In old IITs, 30 per cent posts of teachers are lying vacant at IIT Bombay, Delhi (35%), Guwahati (27%), Kanpur (37%), Kharagpur (46%), Madras (28%), Roorkee (45%) and IIT BHU (47%)," he said quoting from the HRD reply.

In these eight IITs, only 3935 teachers are working against 6250 posts, which is 37 per cent lesser than sanctioned strength.

The shortfall of teachers in IIT Bhubaneshwar is 35%, IIT Gandhinagar (11%), IIT Hyderabad (16%), IIT Jodhpur (39%), IIT Patna (20%), IIT Rpar (24%), IIT Tirupati (39%), IIT Palakkad (28%) and IIT Dhanbad (36%).