COIMBATORE: Following strong opposition from teachers to the All India Council for Technical Education’s (AICTE) move to reduce the faculty-student ratio from 1:15 to 1:20, the council has decided not to consider adjunct faculty members in calculating the ratio.
In the 2017-18 academic year, the AICTE allowed technical institutions, including engineering colleges, to employ people from industry as adjunct faculty or resource persons to provide students industrial exposure and improve their employability. According to the rule, at least 80 per cent of the faculty members should be regular, full-time people; the remaining can be adjunct faculty/resource persons.
However, from the academic year 2018-19, adjunct faculty/resource persons will not be included in calculating the faculty-student ratio. Only regular faculty members will be counted for computing the ratio.
This decision was taken after the academic community, particularly teachers, strongly opposed the AICTE’s recent decision to reduce the student-faculty ratio from 1:15 to 1:20. Academics argued that this would affect research work. However, in the case of Architecture and Planning, adjunct faculty or resource persons up to 30 per cent are permissible, as the programme requires exhaustive practical field exposure, AICTE said.
In all other programmes, under exigent conditions like delay in recruitment or relieving/retirement of regular faculty members, adjunct faculty/resource persons up to 10 per cent of the requirement may be availed. This too is allowed only for a period not exceeding one academic session.
However, T D Eswaramoorthy, secretary of All India Federation of Self-Financing Technical Institutions, said, “If adjunct faculty is not considered while calculating the ratio, many colleges will not employ adjunct faculty. From the industry side, people who are interested in sharing ideas and teaching will not get opportunity.”
Stiff opposition
Teachers had strongly opposed the AICTE’s recent decision to reduce the student-faculty ratio from 1:15 to 1:20. Academics argued that this would affect research work.