Mumbai: Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have proposed to hire foreign nationals as permanent faculty members. IITs are mooting for the proposal because of the ongoing faculty crunch.
In the year 2006, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry had allowed the IITs to hire foreign nationals as faculty members, but only on the basis of contract for a maximum period of five years. At present, about a third of faculty positions are lying vacant. This led to a proposal by the IITs to allow foreign nationals as permanent faculty members, as it would help in solving the problem of lack of well qualified teachers.
On Friday i.e. on September 10, 2010, in the next meeting of IIT Council, the proposal for the same will be discussed. If the proposal is approved, IITs would be able to allot around 10 % of their teaching positions to foreign nationals on a permanent basis.
Since IITs expand every year, the institutes require around 1200-1500 new well qualified teachers, which implies that almost 70 faculty members are needed in one IIT per year. The vacancies for teaching positions were not being filled at the institutes due to very few well-qualified teachers.
In addition, an IIT director informed that many qualified foreign faculty members had showed their interest in teaching at the IITs in permanent posts, including several foreign nationals from Eastern Europe.
