IITs Finding it Hard to Balance Teacher-Student Ratio

Presently, the all-India faculty strength is 3,904. "Generally, the older IITs have been picking up about 35 to 40 new teachers annually," said an IIT director. "But student strength has risen rapidly because of the OBC expansion and also as PhD numbers went up. It isn't possible to take faculty numbers up so sharply so quickly. We are going to take five to ten years to reach the ideal teacher-student ratio," he added.

IIT-Bombay director Devang Khakhar said that with most recruits having an overseas PhD, the faculty quality has improved over the time and most of them are experienced with international level of teaching or working experience.

"We cannot and do not want to compromise on the quality of teaching faculty just because we are facing staff shortage. We acknowledge that our existing teachers have been taking the extra burden, but we are constantly looking for good people," said IIT-Roorkee director Pradipto Banerjee.

The HRD ministry is planning to establish a new framework of technical staff that can maintain laboratories at the tech schools. The technical staff can lighten the burden of teachers who shoulder lab responsibilities along with teaching. This will also enable teachers to completely concentrate on teaching and devote time only for it. Potential teachers will be recruited based on each IIT’s requirements. "The modern equipment and sophisticated labs need better-qualified people," said an IIT head.
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