Package to woo retiring IIT faculty mooted

Retired IIT professors and government scientists as well as bright students on the verge of finishing their Ph.D could soon become the target of IIT faculty recruitment, with the government suggesting a special package to woo them.

As the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, kicked off its golden jubilee celebrations on Thursday, the spotlight shifted from the achievements of the past to the challenges facing the elite technical institutions in the future.

With the mushrooming of engineering institutions, including six new IITs being launched this year, “shortage of faculty is an area of acute concern,” Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari, said at the inauguration function. “The quality of their graduates would depend on the quality of their teachers… Compounding this problem is the fact that there is a drain from teaching and research into other, more lucrative fields.”

One way of dealing with this problem would be for the IITs to “consider providing a special package for those faculty members retiring at the age of 65 as well as for eminent scientists retiring at the age of 60 from CSIR laboratories, DRDO laboratories or some private corporations,” said the Minister.

She also suggested that the IITs take a proactive approach and compile data on potential young candidates available abroad. If the IITs could recruit students on the verge of completing post-doctoral research either in India or abroad, once they were earmarked as potential faculty, they could be given support to continue post-doctoral research in any premier institution of their choice, she said. “The IITs can also consider employing adjunct faculty from the ranks of those working in industrial R&D establishments as well as faculty members of Indian origin working in American and European universities,” she added.

The IITs should look to retain the 1,000 Ph.D scholars passing out of their own institutions every year, as well as attract the 50,000 Indian students doing their Ph.D. abroad, said R.P. Agrawal, secretary, Higher Education, in the Union Ministry for Human Resource Development. He said the Ministry was aware of the questions of quantity trumping quality arising as the new IITs opened their doors.

“There are concerns about the new IITs … that brand equity will get diluted. We are alive to these concerns and are taking measures to ensure that quality does not go down,” he said. “The challenge is to expand with equity and excellence, to retain our core values while being open to the healthy winds of change.”
For a curious mix

IIT-M has attempted to keep that mix of tradition and innovation throughout the last 50 years. It was inaugurated as India’s third IIT on July 31, 1959, with West German cooperation.

The German links are still alive, testified German Ambassador to India Bernd Mutzelburg. One reason why so many German companies had invested in Tamil Nadu was the IIT connection, he said. “It has become, in some sense, the pride of Germany as well…The most important investment we ever made [in India] was into IIT-Madras, because it was into the brains and hearts of Indians. It pays out now in so many ways for our strategic interests.”
Human resource

Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said IIT and other high quality educational institutions were responsible for the vast pool of trained human resource that made Tamil Nadu such an attractive State for industrial investors.

He invited the IIT faculty, students and alumni to become part of the Information Technology Academy being launched by the State government to improve the quality of technical manpower.