38.3% teaching posts in IITs, 32% in central universities vacant: Education Ministry

New Delhi: A total of 6,180 teaching posts - 32.6 % of the sanctioned 18,936 posts - are lying vacant in the 45 central universities across the country, the central government informed the Parliament on Monday. As many as 38.3% sanctioned teaching posts in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are vacant; 31% in Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).

In a written reply to questions asked by Lok Sabha MPs Adv. AM Ariff and Ravi Kumar, union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that out of 18,956 sanctioned teaching posts in 45 central universities, 12,776 posts were filled up and 6,180 posts were vacant as on December 1, 2022.

Vacancies in central universities

Out of 6,180 vacant teaching posts, maximum 2,347 posts (37.9%) are of assistant professor, followed by 2,304 posts (37.2%) of associate professor and rest 1,529 (24.7%) are of professor. The category-wise breakup of all vacant teaching posts, shows that a maximum of 2,267 posts (36.6%) are for the general category followed by 1,559 (25.2%) posts reserved for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and 908 (14.6%) for Scheduled Castes (SC).

The Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category, introduced in 2019, has the high proportion of vacancies – 72.4% of the total posts – followed by persons with disabilities (PWD) with 58.6 %.

IIT, IIM vacancies

Pradhan informed Lok Sabha that 4,502 out of 11,170 sanctioned teaching posts are lying vacant in IITs. At IIMs, 493 out of 1,566 sanctioned teaching posts are vacant.

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Pradhan told Lok Sabha that the education ministry has directed all higher education institutions (HEIs) to fill up the vacancies in “mission mode” and has set up a monthly monitoring mechanism. “Occurrence of vacancies and filling thereof is a continuous process,” he said.