New Delhi, Sept. 8: The IITs may soon be employing foreign nationals as permanent faculty members in an effort to overcome shortage of quality teachers.
Official sources stated that the proposal was likely to come up for discussion at the IIT council meeting scheduled to take place on Friday. The proposal aims to enable the premier engineering and technology institutes to appoint foreign teachers on permanent positions, up to 10 per cent of the faculty strength.
In 2007, the IITs had been granted permission to hire foreign nationals as faculty members, but only for a maximum period of 5 years on a contract basis.
The IITs face a massive shortage of faculty with IIT Kharagpur having the maximum vacancies at 299, followed by IIT-Bombay with 222, IIT-Roorkee with 194, IIT-Madras with 138 and IIT-Delhi with 78. While there are 69 vacancies in IIT-Kanpur, 65 in IIT-Guwahati and 48 in IIT-Ropad. The proposal points out that the US varsities have benefited by attracting faculty from across the globe. It was also felt that the presence of foreign faculty would expose graduating students to globally distinguished professors and help reduce brain drain.
Appointment of foreign faculty could also give a boost to IITs’ plan to enrol foreign students for the post-graduate programme. IITs have already requested the Union HRD ministry to enrol foreign students to the extent of 25 per cent of the total student strength.
The HRD ministry had recently permitted IITs to hire persons of Indian origin (PIOs) as permanent faculty after an initial vetting process. The IIT council meeting could also finalise plans to set up ‘centre of studies’ devoted to a foreign country with a view to develop expertise on countries of strategic importance.