IITs moot hiring foreign teachers on permanent basis

Facing a massive shortage of well-qualified teaching staff after increasing student capacity, the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have proposed appointing foreign nationals to faculty positions.

The move, if accepted, could enable the prestigious institutes to appoint foreign teachers on permanent positions, which could be up to 10 per cent of the faculty strength, said IIT officials. With one-third of teaching positions lying vacant, the proposal is expected to be deliberated at the next IIT council meeting in New Delhi on Friday.

IIT-Kharagpur leads the pack with 299 vacancies, followed by IIT-Bombay with 222, IIT-Roorkee with 194, IIT-Madras with 138 and IIT-Delhi with 78. Others are not much better off in this regard.

In 2007, the IITs had been granted permission to hire foreign nationals as faculty members, but only for a maximum period of 5 years and on a contract basis. The ministry had also recently permitted IITs to hire persons of Indian origin (PIOs) as permanent faculty after an initial vetting process.

The IITs have contended that the presence of foreign faculty on IIT campuses will benefit graduating students in the globalised world, besides lending an international flavour to the campuses and reducing brain drain.

Appointment of foreign faculty could also give a boost to IITs' plan to enrol foreign students for the post-graduate programmes. IITs have already requested the human resources development ministry to enrol foreign students to the extent of 25 per cent of the total student strength.