NEW DELHI: All entry-level teachers in India’s top technology institutes — Indian Institutes of Technology — will join only as contractual teachers for five and half years and their positions will be confirmed as associate professors only if their performance is found to be “satisfactory.”
The decision was taken in the meeting of IIT Council — the top administrative body of 23 IITs — chaired by Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Friday.
At present, assistant professors in IITs are on probation for a year but their services are rarely discontinued.
The new tenure track system, through which all future appointments will be made, however, will enable the institute to terminate the services of an assistant professor if it’s not happy with their performance.
IITs, which are already struggling to find new talents to join them, have a mixed reaction to this rule which was designed by the ministry.
“Only time will tell how this system will work out as it will put pressure on new faculty members,” an IIT director told this newspaper.
The Council also decided that an HRD committee along with Niti Aayog will be tasked to come up with a “viable” plan to ensure greater financial autonomy to these institutes.
IITs had proposed that all undergraduate and post-graduate students be charged Rs 6 lakh per year which can then be paid to them directly by the government. This would have allowed them to generate nearly one-third of their total revenues from the tuition fee.
“However, it was felt that larger consultation on this very sensitive issue is required,” a senior HRD ministry official present in the meeting said.
“More autonomy and lesser dependence on the government are important but we do not want the burden to be passed on to the students and therefore there has to be a model that suits everyone.”