According to the reports, as on 1st October 2016 there are 6,080 vacant teaching posts in various UGC funded central universities out of the total 17,006 posts. A parliamentary panel suggested the government to make the teaching field more attractive and take the steps to fill up the vacancies in IITs, IIMs, and other Universities. BJP MP Satyanarayan Jatiya who handles the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development has asked the Department of Higher Education to initiate the process of filling up the vacancies.
The availability of qualified faculty is a necessity to provide the students with quality education. The committee found that from the well-established central universities to those set up recently, state or private varsities, IITs or IIMs were functioning with large vacancies.
The committee stated that, "There can be only two possibilities, either our young students are not attracted towards the teaching profession or the recruitment process is a prolonged one and involves too many procedural formalities".
Report submitted by the panel:
The panel said that the Department of Higher Education under the HRD Ministry is the nodal authority for the entire country for higher education sector and it should take a proactive role to expedite filling up of existing vacancies
Recommendations were also made to make the teaching profession more attractive
The panel also suggested that the faculty should be encouraged to undertake consultancy and should also be given start-up financial support
It also expressed concern at the lack of employable skills of students passing out of technical institutions and has asked the government to take steps to address the issue.
Last year in December, the HRD Ministry had told Parliament that 1,310 posts of professors were vacant in various central universities. In the recently concluded parliament session, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar assured that a majority of vacancies for teachers in universities and colleges would be filled up this year.