1200 teachers to improve education quality in 50 Indian technical colleges

New Delhi: The Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) has recruited over 1200 graduates for teaching in 50 institutes including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) to teach students in different technical colleges across India. The IIT and NIT graduates will be offering their services in the States and Union Territories where quality of education is quite low, including Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tripura, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The Union Minister for HRD, Prakash Javadekar said, “These bright minds will bring with them the openness to innovation, new methods of teaching and enthusiasm to serve and act as agents of change.” He further said that this initiative will help meet the aspirations of youth in the ‘backward’ areas. “I hope these teachers would contribute to the entire educational ecosystem of the states and universities where education specially the technical is not up to the mark,” added the Union HRD Minister.
Each of these newly recruited faculties will be given a monthly remuneration of Rs. 70,000.
The recruitment process
A public appeal was made to the MTech and PhD students from the premier institutions to express interest to work in the states. More than 5000 applications were received from various technical institutions including IITs and NITs. The interviews were conducted in 20 NITs by constituting expert teams. The recruitment process beginning from notification to application and final shortlisting of candidates was completed through a competitive selection process in a record 2-month period. Finally, 1225 candidates were selected and they have joined 53 colleges in these states.
Profile of shortlisted teachers
Out of the total of 1225 shortlisted technical graduates, 293 hold a PhD and 932 an MTech degree. The 86 per cent of them have done their technical education from IITs, NITs, IISERs and IIITs. These newly recruited technical teachers represent the 369 district of 26 states.
Technical Education Quality Improvement Project (TEQIP)
MHRD has begun Technical Education Quality Improvement Project (TEQIP-III) for improving the quality of engineering graduates. The project will cost Rs. 2,300 Crore which is to be implemented in 3-year period till 2020. The focus is on improving the quality of technical education in the most-backward states including Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, North-East, Rajasthan etc. Under this project, all the Government engineering colleges are selected for direct intervention, and all private engineering colleges are selected for indirect intervention.