Nearly half of SC, ST teaching positions vacant in central institutions: Education Ministry

NEW DELHI: Education ministry on Monday shared data in Parliament showing that nearly half the teaching positions for historically marginalised candidates in central universities across India are vacant.

As per the official data, out of 2,272 teaching positions sanctioned for Scheduled Caste or SC candidates in central universities,1,257 positions have been filled while 1,015 posts are vacant. Meanwhile, out of 1,154 posts meant for Scheduled Tribe or ST candidates, 590 are lying vacant. There are 45 central universities that are administered and funded by the ministry of education.

In response to a question in Lok Sabha, the ministry has stated the number of teaching positions sanctioned and the vacancies reserved for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe in central universities, Indira Gandhi National Open University, and various Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs).

In IGNOU, 45 percent of teaching positions meant for SC candidates are lying vacant. Out of 120 SC seats sanctioned, 54 posts are still vacant along with 26 ST teaching posts. Meanwhile, in IIITs, 63 percent of teaching posts reserved for SC and 88 percent seats reserved for ST candidates are vacant. The IIITs include both government-funded and institutes run in a public-private partnership model.

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As per the central law, these institutes are required to implement a reservation of 27% in faculty positions for candidates from the Other Backward Classes or OBC category, 15% for SC and 7.5% for ST candidates. Earlier in the monsoon session of the Parliament, the ministry data showed that only 7,839 posts out of the 16,649 posts for reserved categories were filled in central universities.

SC and ST teaching vacancies

In the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the data further stated, 183 SC and 32 ST teaching posts are vacant. In the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) 562 SC and 152 ST teaching posts are unoccupied. However, the data does not reflect the number of posts sanctioned in each category for IITs and NITs. The Indian Institutes of Management have 76 teaching posts combined for both SC and ST candidates.

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In August, the ministry had directed all higher educational institutions, like the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institute of Management, and all central universities to fill the reserved category vacancies by September 2022. To enable monitoring of the progress of recruitment, the education ministry has asked institutions to include a separate chapter “depicting the status of filling up of backlog vacancies in the tabular format” in the annual reports they file every year.

Following the Centre's direction, IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, IIT (Banaras Hindu University), and IIT Ropar started a “special recruitment drive” to hire teachers from the reserved categories.

Due to the shortage of teaching staff, Delhi University (DU) has submitted annual reports and audit accounts to the ministry of education on time only once in the past 30 years.

In addition, the University Grants Commission has asked all universities to upload the details of teaching vacancies on the University Activity Monitoring Portal.