IIMs seek exemption from reservation in faculty appointments over shortage of eligible candidates

New Delhi: India's premier public institutions for management studies, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have written to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) requesting exemption from reserving faculty positions under various categories, The Indian Express has reported.

As per the IIMs, there is a shortage of eligible candidates from the reserved categories and they want the government to create a mechanism through which a pipeline of eligible candidates can be created to join as faculty in IIMs.

In November 2019, the MHRD asked all 20 IIMs to provide quota in faculty positions for the historically marginalised Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) and also for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) among the upper castes.

The IIMs in their letter to the MHRD have stated that they adopt a fair recruitment process and give equal opportunities to all, including disadvantaged sections of society, reported the Press Trust of India.

Bharat Bhasker, director, IIM Raipur told Careers360: “We are not against reservation policy, we would be happy to get people from various sections. But, our problem is that we are not getting eligible candidates, who could teach PGP students. We have requested the government to create a mechanism through which PhD level students can be enrolled from SC/ST and other categories so that they can be groomed and trained to teach, which is not happening right now.”

As per MHRD's data, presently, there are only 11 SC/ST faculty members teaching in twenty Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), with no faculty members from the SC/ST community in 12 IIMs including Ahmedabad, Indore and Calcutta.

The premier B-Schools till now have been following the 1975-order of the Department of Personnel & Training, which exempted scientific and technical posts from the reservation policy.

In November last year, the HRD ministry asked all the IIMs to prepare rosters and begin to follow reservation policy in all recruitments for faculty positions. The Ministry order said that the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act was notified on July 9 to provide for reservation in teaching positions in all institutions.

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