Archive for the ‘Faculty Shortage’ Category
Spurt in demand for PG engineering courses
Contrary to popular perception, the engineering education segment seems to be doing well. In the past year, the number of seats in postgraduate (PG) engineering institutes has swelled 160 per cent and there is a 100 per cent year-on-year growth in the number of new PG engineering institutes.
According to data by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the country’s technical education regulator, as many as 888 seats were added in 2012-13, compared to 342 in the previous year.
Ten postgraduate institutes were opened in 2012-13, against five last year. The new institutes were opened in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, which got two new PG engineering institutes each, and Kerala, where one institute was opened.
Industry observers say the sudden expansion in PG engineering seats is to meet the spurt in the number of students applying for such courses as numerous faculty vacancies exist across engineering colleges in these states.
In Andhra Pradesh, for instance, as many as 71,045 students applied for the PG Engineering Common Entrance Examination (PGECET) this year against 36,000 students a year ago. Besides, according to a new AICTE directive, faculty at engineering should have the minimum qualification of a postgraduate degree. Until last year, these teaching posts were largely filled with B Tech graduates.
According to industry experts, the number of students opting for postgraduate studies had come down by nearly 50 per cent over the past two decades, resulting in an acute faculty shortage in a number of education institutions. In the next academic year, in Andhra Pradesh alone, more than 700 engineering colleges will have about 70,000 posts to fill.
The new-found interest in PG engineering education is also due to the fact that from next year, even private engineering colleges will offer the sixth pay commission salaries for teaching positions. This means a basic salary of Rs. 36,000 at the entry level.
On the other hand, five PG engineering colleges shut down in 2012-13, against seven in 2011-12. The seat loss due to this stood at 342 in 2012-13, compare to 576 in 2011-12.
The Flip Side
It is a different picture for management education and under-graduate engineering. In 2012-13, the number of management institutes opened were 82, compared to 146 last year — adding 7,740 seats to the pool against 14,340 seats last year.
The number of management institutes closed this year stood at 101 against 124 last year. The number of seats lost this, however, were 6,090 against 5,602 last year.
“Opening and closing of institutes has become a game. Approval of institutes has become a racket in the country and AICTE needs to go beyond its fascination for approving management and engineering institutions left, right and centre,” says the director of a Delhi-based B-school ranked among top 10 B-schools in the country.
“AICTE’s role is a holistic one. But they are, instead, playing the role of a regulator. AICTE has forgotten its job of making technical education qualitative. AICTE keeps adding seats even when the market does not need more seats. Thus, professional education in the country is suffering,” the B-school director adds.
In the under-graduate engineering segment, about 95 engineering institutes were opened this year, against 178 last year. While the number of institutes shut down this year stood at 12 against 28 last year, the number of seats lost was 2,710 this year against 9,835 last year. The number of seats added in under-graduate engineering stood at 27,060 seats against 51,900 seats in 2011-12.
Source: Business Standard, September 27, 2012
Top B-schools see foreigners apply for faculty posts
Ten years ago, Galit Shmueli would not have contemplated coming to India to teach, for the fear of being isolated from the research community in the West. Today, the Israeli academician, an associate professor of statistics and information systems at the Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB), says “geographical location is no longer a barrier, thanks to the high-speed internet.” Be it the gloomy economic scenario in the West or the growing numbers of globally acclaimed B-schools of India, domestic campuses are finding more number of non-Indian origin people applying for faculty posts.
At the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), the number of applications for faculty posts from foreign nationals has gone up from zero earlier to seven at present. “While the slowdown could be one of the reasons for academicians in the West looking towards India and Asia, we believe this is also because of IIM-A making it to the Financial Times (FT) rankings globally that has attracted these foreign nationals,” says Dean-Academics, Ajay Pandey.
Shmueli is finding the research culture at ISB similar to those in the US. “From the cultural point of view, most of my colleagues at ISB are Indians who had spent at least five years in top B-schools in the US. Hence, the research culture is very similar to my experience in the US and there is a lot of common ground. We all travel to the West to attend major conferences, and collaborate with colleagues abroad using Skype, email, and collaborative document sharing tools,” she says.
Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman, board of governors, IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C), says, “In the last couple of years it has become relatively easier to get PhDs. More NRIs are wanting to join Indian B-schools. While the IIMs are gaining in stature, the grim economic scenario internationally is also a factor.” IIM-C has hired around 20 faculty members in the last two years, and several of them have come from international universities. It has a pool of 95 faculty members.
The economic slowdown has meant financial trouble for international universities. According to The Economist, long-term debt at not-for-profit universities in America has been growing at 12 per cent a year, estimate Bain & Company, a consultancy, and Sterling Partners, a private-equity firm. A new report looked at the balance sheets and cashflow statements of 1,692 universities and colleges between 2006 and 2010, and found one-third were significantly weaker than they had been several years earlier. Even Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Georgetown have been on an unsustainable path in recent years, says Bain, though all have big endowments to cushion themselves.
At ISB, applications have been pouring in from people who are not of Indian origin over the past few years. But given the fact that the school looks for people who get into the top 30-50 schools world over, the demand continues to remain strong and supply weak. “There is a substantial interest among NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) to come, and it is easier for us to hire now than it was last year,” says Sanjay Kallapur, Senior Associate Dean, Faculty & Research Development. “There has been an increase in demand from people in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. Though the US economy is still not doing well, the starting salaries have increased by 10 per cent,” says Kallapur.
ISB takes about a year to close an appointment for junior professors and three to five years for senior professors. The institute says it cannot pay international faculty members the same salary as that of the US. So, it benchmarks the salaries at about 60 per cent of the US salaries. “Now that the rupee has become cheaper, we cannot fully compensate for the same. This means we can’t reach 60 per cent of the US salaries. It has become more like 50 per cent of the US salaries,” says Kallapur.
Salaries at ISB are fixed in rupee terms and are benchmarked against the dollar when it was 40. The rupee on Tuesday slid to a fresh low of Rs. 55.39 against the dollar. It has declined by 11.5 per cent since February. ISB has 46 permanent faculty staff, and says it will continue to hire for a long time, as its programmes keep expanding. It opened a Mohali centre in Punjab this year. ISB’s salaries are better than its industry peers, which is why the IIMs say they are facing a challenge from ISB when it comes to recruiting international faculty members.
Meanwhile, Shmueli is positive on the Indian B-school scenario. “Because the concept of research at B-schools in India is new, another important area for growth is PhD programmes. Top B-schools have strong PhD programmes that support and expand faculty research, as well as providing a pool of new faculty. I look forward to seeing this growth in the next few years,” she adds.
Source: Business Standard, August 16, 2012
Indian education system faces massive faculty crunch
The Indian education system — from school to higher education, including the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) — is plagued by a massive manpower crunch.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) presentation before Parliament’s Consultative Committee on Tuesday also highlights that in school education poor performance of big states is affecting the national picture. In the case of higher education, 42 Central universities with sanctioned faculty strength of 16,602 have 6,542 vacancies.
But it is the school education that is facing the real heat. Throughout the country there is a vacancy for 1.25 million teachers in primary and upper primary schools. Uttar Pradesh leads the way with 312,000 vacancies against the sanctioned strength of 818,000. Bihar has not been able to fill 262,000 teaching positions, whereas West Bengal has 180,000 vacancies. For its size, Chhattisgarh has 62,466 vacancies. Madhya Pradesh has 89,000 vacancies, Gujarat (11,695), Karnataka (18,253), Delhi (10,074), Andhra (15,379) and Kerala (3,013).
The Parliamentary Consultative Committee dealt with the issue of proposed national mission on teachers and teaching. The committee was told about two specific proposals by University Grants Commission (UGC) on teacher training. The UGC had recommended setting up regional centres of educational management in IIM-Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Bangalore and in the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA).
Source: The Times of India, August 3, 2012
IIM-Ahmedabad tells faculty to research its way to glory
The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), has directed all its professors to spend as much time on research as they do teaching. The IIM-A’s board of governors has also put in place a new performance measurement system in which research will be given as much weightage as teaching in the annual appraisals of its faculty.
“Research has become our main focus now,” Ajay Pandey, Dean (Faculty) at IIM-A told The Economic Times. “When the institute was set up (in 1961), India was nowhere in the global academic community. Also, nobody in the world was interested in India. The situation has changed. We now work with global organisations that have huge interest in Indian issues.”
An IIM-A faculty is also allowed to spend 53 days in a year for advisory and consulting work, which generates revenues for the institute. The new norms on research do not alter the time allotted for consulting. Earlier, research and related activities were considered only for promotions or for confirming teachers on probation. Faculty members will now need to do more research and get their work published in various journals, domestic as well as international. “If any research work is published in a top international journal, the faculty member would get higher credits. If a faculty member exceeds expectations, he will get higher credits…this will help them in their career,” Pandey added.
IIM-A has to focus on research if it wants to be one of the world’s top five institutes, said Nayan Parikh, President of IIM-A Alumni Association (Ahmedabad Chapter). “Research will also increase industry interface.” IIM-Ahmedabad PGPX was ranked 11th overall in the Financial Times, London, Global MBA Rankings 2012.
Research work is important
IIM-Ahmedabad, however, ranked 94 out of 100 B-schools when it came to research ranking. The research rank is based on the number of articles published by schools’ full-time faculty in 45 internationally recognised academic and practitioner journals. A study by London Business School’s ‘Aditya Birla India Centre’ professors Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam in 2011 suggests that IIM-A was ranked sixth in India, lower than ISB-Hyderabad, IIM-Calcutta and IIM-Bangalore, in publishing research papers between 1990-2009. The study was based on research by Indian B-schools published in FT top 40 journals. “Any institute requires intense research work to maintain and improve its position in teaching, in the academic field or in society,” Pandey said. “It is expected by all the sections that faculty at top institutes do good research. Research also helps faculty in teaching with depth in the classroom,” he added.
IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Calcutta have already stepped up emphasis on research. The former gave approximately 50% emphasis to research in faculty appraisals last year and the latter has allowed faculty to do more research and less teaching if they so desire. IIM-A faculty members published 19 books, six monographs, 57 journal articles, 25 book chapters and 103 articles in periodicals and dailies in 2010-11. The faculty also wrote 140 cases during the year for use in various courses.
The faculty, research staff and doctoral students of the institute also wrote 47 working papers, presented 159 papers and gave 121 lectures at various conferences and seminars. The institute is still compiling the data of research work for the year 2011-12. “IIM-A has always encouraged research. However, focus on research in academic culture of India and Asia has been inadequate for decades. There was a significant improvement in focus on research in the past decade,” said Bakul Dholakia, former IIM-A Director.
The new norms have their roots in the institute’s archives. A paper written during the tenure of IIM-A’s first full-time director Ravi Matthai (in the ’60s) had named teaching and research as the criteria for assessing the faculty. There is one problem though. While the number of students in the institute has almost doubled in the past few years the number of faculty has not increased. “IIM-A needs to double its faculty strength to realise its dreams,” Parikh said. IIM-A has around 85 faculty members and has been trying to increase it to 120 for the past few years.
Source: The Economic Times, July 3, 2012
Paucity of faculty hits business schools
Management education in the country is on a bumpy road, thanks to shortage of faculty. Most business schools are managing the show with skeleton staff and are increasingly depending on guest faculty. “The shortage of eligible faculty is a very serious concern for management education in India,” Prof Sanjay Kallapur, Senior Associate Dean, Faculty and Research, Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad told Business Line.
While the premier schools are able to attract talent to some extent, students at the tier-II institutions in the country are severely hit by non-availability of quality staff. “The shortage of faculty is due to lack of research focus. If there are no Ph.D or equivalent research programmes, it is not possible to build a team of teachers,” Prof Kallapur said. Though most of the Indian universities do have recognized Ph.D programmes there are very few takers, as management graduates prefer remunerative jobs to research and teaching.
According to the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) norms, the minimum eligibility to become an assistant professor in business school is a first class in Master of Business Administration (MBA). But, there is a problem. According to Prof Mohd Masood Ahmed, President of Association of Indian Management Schools (AIMS), “A first class MBA graduate will get a good job in the industry immediately. So, nobody is ready to take up teaching,” he said.
Since a doctorate is a must for qualifying as an associate professor along with some experience, there has been a shortage of mid-level teachers as well. “As a result, the management colleges are unable to get the mandatory number of teachers. As per AICTE norms, a batch of 60 students should have a minimum of eight faculty. But on an average there are hardly five teachers in many colleges. This is also impacting the quality of education,” Mr Ahmed said.
Dr V. Venkata Ramana, Dean, School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad says mushrooming growth of business schools over the last couple of years is also turning out to be a big problem. “No regulator, be it AICTE or the University Grants Commission (UGC), has a clue on what is happening or any perspective on this issues,” he said.
Way Forward
Experts say that concerted efforts are needed to bridge the gap in the demand and supply of qualified faculty and improve quality of education. “Good inputs for research programmes, stipends and scholarships will motivate people to take up research and teaching in management. The talented students/researchers have to be weaned away from joining corporates to take up teaching jobs with suitable rewards,” Dr Ramana said.
Efforts are also on to improve quality of existing faculty. On its part AIMS has launched a special drive to train at least 1,000 teachers for business school. “So far, we have trained 585 teachers. The training programmes for the remaining will be completed by end of next month,” Dr Ahmed said.
Another programme, called Management 2050, would also be launched to create and groom faculty for the fast-changing requirements of management education by the association soon. According to AIMS data, there are about 4,000 business schools in the country. Of these, one-fourth are located in Andhra Pradesh. The total faculty strength is around 30,000 and there is an immediate room for 15,000 teachers.
Source: The Hindu Business Line, June 9, 2012
MHRD pulled up for 35% vacant teacher posts
The shortfall of teaching staff in universities across States has drawn the attention of a Parliamentary panel which has slammed the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) for the “discouraging” situation. It says in 24 Central universities across 16 States, on an average 35 per cent of teaching posts are lying vacant.
The universities with a large number of vacancies include Delhi University, where nearly half or 919 of the 1,701 sanctioned posts are vacant. In Banaras Hindu University, there are no teachers in 848 posts, and in Allahabad University 285 posts are vacant.
The Standing Committee on HRD, in a report tabled in Parliament, took a “serious note” of these vacant posts, and pointed out that it may possibly mean young students are not attracted towards the teaching profession. “The Committee observes that the situation is quite discouraging at present,” the panel said.
Vacancies
The report says, of 77 the State universities, according to the data from 2007, 19 universities have more than 50 per cent vacancies, and in 14 other universities 40 per cent posts are vacant. Showing some leniency towards the newly formed Central universities, the Committee said a large number of vacancies in the Central universities formed in the last three to four years could be “justified to some extent”.
However, it questions the long-established universities as to why they have been unable to appoint teachers. “…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,” the panel says.
The report also slammed the Government on delays in raising the salary scales of teachers in colleges and universities, saying “the improved package will undoubtedly help in attracting and retaining talented teachers, resulting ultimately in the improvement of quality of higher education”.
The non-utilisation of allocated funds by the Central university has also been criticised by the panel. It, however, adds that the proposed National Mission on Teachers and Training, which is to be launched in the 12th Five Year Plan, is a step in right direction, even though delayed.
Source: The Hindu Business Line, May 11, 2012
Staff crunch, temporary campuses mar new IITs
The government’s attempt to bolster professional education institutes has turned a cropper, with the new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISERs) hit by an acute shortage of faculty and are still functioning from temporary campuses. A parliamentary panel report has asked the HRD ministry to ensure that these gaps are met so that the premium institutes can function more effectively.
The standing committee on HRD has expressed concern over the shortage of faculty that is as high as 60% in some IITs. The sanctioned posts in the new IITs are about 90, but none of the new institutes have been able to fill up their posts. While IIT-Hyderabad had the support of 74 faculty members, institutes in Patna (55), Bhubaneswar (50), Indore (38) and Mandi (35) had below-par strength. IIT-Jodhpur was worst off, with only 32 members in its faculty. “The committee is of the view that only qualified and experienced faculty can make the functioning of any institution, specially premier institutions like IIT meaningful and effective,” the report said.
It also expressed concern over the running of new IITs from temporary campuses despite being set up between 2008 and 2010. In the case of new IITs, either the location of the permanent campus was being finalized or land allotted or construction work was to start. In the case of IITs in Bhubaneswar and Mandi, for instance, the foundation stones were laid in February, 2009, but they continued to function from temporary campuses. The report said that it was clear that it would take some time before IITs begin to function from “well-structured and well-equipped campuses.”
Five IISERs (in Pune, Kolkata, Mohali, Bhopal and Thiruvanthapuram) also continue to function from temporary campuses. Pulling up the ministry, the parliamentary panel said that: “These institutions were envisaged to carry out research in frontier areas of science and to provide quality science education at undergraduate and postgraduate level.” IISERs are expected to have state-of-the-art buildings, fully equipped labs and rich library but these facilities are still not available for students.
The report noted 10 new NITs (National Institutes of Technology) also suffered similar fate, with four functioning out of their respective mentor NITs and six running from temporary campuses. The committee also observed that several legislations related to higher education continued to be delayed.
Source: The Times of India, May 10, 2012
India may ask universities to double intake
To produce larger numbers of qualified job-seekers to feed a growing economy, some Indian universities may have to double their student enrolment in the five years to March 2017, with students per acre of university campus being used as a measure of efficiency. The University Grants Commission (UGC), which regulates higher education in the country, has said in a report that a majority of 556 universities don’t enrol enough students in spite of their large campuses.
“The 43 central universities, except a few like Delhi University, are functioning with disproportionately low student enrolment compared to the campus area,” the report said. “A 100% increase in intake is feasible in 30 of these university campuses.” The regulator has suggested this in a document that seeks to chart the course of university education in India in the 12th Five-Year Plan period that started on 1 April. Mint has reviewed a copy of the report.
Any plan that looks at just increasing numbers is “ridiculous,” according to Deepak Pental, a former vice-chancellor of the University of Delhi. “Authorities should not equate number with quality, though we understand that a service economy needs to get enough human capital to sustain the growth rate,” said Pental, who was part of a state-formed committee of vice-chancellors — who are executive chiefs of India’s universities — on reforming higher education through increased transparency in their functioning.
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi has a 1,000-acre campus, but only caters to less than 6,000 students, according to its website. The University of Hyderabad has nearly 5,000 students in its 2,000-acre campus, while the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) in Shillong, spread across 1,250 acres, has a student strength of around 18,000, according to data available on their websites.
The commission strongly advocates compact campuses. “The concept of large campuses for universities needs a relook to increase their enrolment at least by 100% of the existing number,” it said. “Scarcity of land has necessitated a vertical growth rather than horizontal spread.” The plan has a lot of merit and existing universities need to expand and become more comprehensive in their offering of courses, said an official at the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), who declined to be named. UGC is a part of the ministry.
However, increasing the number of students at JNU in a large proportion will “hamper the quality of the institution at a time when India lacks quality universities”, a professor at the premier institution said, requesting anonymity. “Any step to dilute brands like JNU could be counterproductive.” Pental, however, said he was in favour of compact universities. “There should be maximum utilization of resources,” he said. “Look at the universities in Singapore; they are compact and doing so well.”
The commission in its report said that even if 50% of the 317 publicly funded universities increase the total intake by an average 30%, there will be an increased enrolment of 200,000 students during the 12th Plan. Similarly, if 20,000 colleges of the total 31,324 are allowed to expand through special funding, it will also increase enrolment significantly.
“Assuming the average strength of a college in India to be 400 from the current data, a modest average increase of 200 students per college will result in an increase of about four million in the 20,000 colleges,” it said. However, a shortage of trained faculty could be a stumbling block for any such plan. Indian universities face a shortage of teachers in the rage of 25-33%, according to official data.
“We need a lot of teachers. Instead of creating capacity for plain BA or BSc, there should be focus on skill-based, industry-worthy courses,” said Pental. “Currently, students with 45% are doing BTech, what will happen to the quality if this continues?” The commission suggests increasing the number of teachers by appointing overseas faculty and industry experts, and has recommended that they be compensated adequately and not just paid meagre sums as honoraria, which is the current practice. It is also in favour of increasing faculty development centres from the present 66 to 100 during the Plan period to continuously engage teachers in updating their knowledge base.
Source: Mint, April 9, 2012
For quality teaching, national mission proposed
Worried over the quality of teaching, the government proposes to set up a National Mission on Teachers and Teaching that would address the entire gamut of issues relating to teachers including teacher education and quality of teaching. The broader policy of teacher/faculty shortages and vacancies, recruitment policies, capacity building of teachers for improvement in qualification, pedagogic skills, technology enabled teaching; continuous training and retraining, and pre-service and in-service training will be brought under the purview of the Mission that will be discussed at the Education Secretary’s meeting scheduled later this month.
Holistic approach
The Mission will look at teacher education in a holistic manner and in a single continuum covering school to universities and suggest ways to strengthen the institutional mechanisms at all levels so that there are vertical and lateral linkages. The challenges of technology interventions to enhance effectiveness of classroom transactions and how to equip teachers in its use, will be clearly spelt out. The Mission goals are sought to be achieved through a combination of policy measures, programmatic and scheme based intervention, creating capacity in Central and State universities for preparation of teachers educators and establishment of Schools of Education in universities
Given the total intake capacity in the teacher education institutions for the elementary and secondary teacher education courses, there is a need to expand the capacity for preparing teacher educators, from the present 28,957 to around 40,000. The University Grants Commission (UGC) is taking steps to ensure that, to start with, all Central Universities take steps for developing institutional capacity to prepare teacher educators. However, even State Universities need to be requested to take action in this regard.
The proposal is to establish Schools of Education (SoE) in select Universities to institute linkages between universities, teacher education institutions and schools. The proposed strategy is to identify 40 University Departments based in Central Universities, selected State Universities, Deemed Universities and other Centres of Higher Education, including the Regional Colleges of Education of the NCERT to establish Schools of Education. These institutions are envisaged to include several units/centres that would undertake in-depth work in specific areas that have remained neglected in teacher and school education.
Untrained teachers
Recent analysis made by the Department of Education shows that there are 523,000 vacancies of school teachers at the elementary level and there would be additional requirement of around 510,000 teachers to fulfil the provisions of Pupil Teacher Ratio specified in the Schedule of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Moreover, around 774,000 teachers are untrained, that is, they do not possess the prescribed qualifications. Under Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), 179,000 additional teachers need to be appointed in secondary schools. Focus on English, Mathematics and Science teachers in secondary schools is also necessary.
In Central Universities, as per data is available in respect of 24 universities across 16 States on an average nearly 35 per cent faculty position are lying vacant. As regards, State Universities, UGC has provided data in respect of faculty positions for 77 State Universities spread across 23 States. Of these, 19 universities have more than 50 per cent posts lying vacant, whereas another 14 have over 40 per cent posts vacant. In technical education also, there is a faculty deficit of around 100,000.
Source: The Hindu, April 6, 2012
Faculty shortage may pose hurdle to four-year course plans
To prime college students for careers in research and make undergraduate education more eclectic, top universities in India are tweaking their three-year bachelor’s degree programmes, in some instances introducing four-year courses, closely modelling the US system. Experts, however, say that given an all-round deficit of faculty across universities in India, such initiatives are unlikely to yield significant benefits unless more funds and faculty are earmarked for such programmes.
Last week, Dinesh Singh, Vice-Chancellor, University of Delhi, said his institution will begin a four-year programme next year. In August, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, will enroll the second batch for its four-year bachelor of science programme. While four-year courses are the norm in programmes such as engineering, the new programmes are aimed to be more flexible, diverse and research-oriented and will do away with the existing tradition of forcing students to choose their academic specialization in the first year itself.
Crucially, they also attempt to integrate the traditional bachelor’s and master’s honours programmes, reducing the time students spend to get both the degrees by a year. “By making graduations courses four-year, the university wishes to promote incisive education with a practical orientation,” said Singh. Students will also have the option to quit the programme at various points of the academic cycle and can leave with diplomas depending on the number of courses completed. Chandan Dasgupta, Dean, undergraduate education, IISc, said the first year of the institute’s initiative was a success. “We got great students in our inaugural batch last year and they’ve done very well. At the end of four years, these students would be fit for PhDs and don’t need a separate master’s degree,” he said.
While many Indian universities such as IISc and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) allow students with at least four years of undergraduate education to enroll for doctorate programmes, most universities in India require a two- or three-year master’s degree. “Those rules are still there, but it’s unlikely that our students would want to opt for such programmes. Many top-ranking universities in India and abroad would be happy to accept them,” said Dasgupta. Some, however, say the requirements of such programmes — an eclectic choice of subjects, more labs and more teachers — could put more stress on India’s short-staffed universities.
According to central government data, the 42 central universities considered to be key to the country’s university system, including the University of Delhi, have nearly one-third of teaching posts vacant. A recent task force of the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD) said the lecturer-to-student ratio in the country is 1:20.9, against 1:13.5 recommended by the University Grants Commission (1:12 for postgraduate students and 1:15 for undergraduates). It added that nearly 100,000 teachers will be required annually over the next decade to meet India’s burgeoning college education demand.
In 2001-02, according to Mishra, the university introduced four-year bachelor of information technology and bachelor of information science courses, but abandoned these in spite of a good response from students as well as the industry. Mishra said the shortage of teachers will affect any new academic plan. Many teaching posts were vacant in the university, according to Mishra, and the university had just begun the process to fill around 3,000 vacancies. “After all the appointments, the four-year course can be put to debate and discussion,” he said, adding that no idea could be introduced without a debate. The extra teaching load wasn’t an issue at IISc, according to Dasgupta. “As an institution we are well-funded, well-staffed and won’t need extra faculty just for this programme,” he said.
G. Raghuram, Director, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, which offers integrated four-year undergraduate degrees in the sciences, said faculty crunch is a nationwide problem and institutes introducing integrated courses ought to dismantle old ones so they don’t face a manpower crisis. “In Pilani, we integrate these courses with our engineering programmes so that students acquire a wide experience. For example, somebody studying physics still learns engineering. This vast exposure makes them better acceptable to industry,” Raghuram said.
Anurag Behar, Vice-Chancellor of the Azim Premji University and a Mint columnist, said while IISc’s four-year course seemed well thought-out, similar plans by other universities didn’t make sense. “The three-year graduation programme in Indian universities is largely mediocre, but merely increasing the duration may not be the solution,” he said. “I think the university system needs to reform a whole lot of things and turning three-year courses into four-year ones could be one of them.”
Source: Mint, January 9, 2012
Higher Education News and Views 
You must be logged in to post a comment.