The government’s affirmative action to provide 27% reservation in higher education institutions to the other backward classes (OBC) category without denting the current intake of the general category of students is a welcome measure. In simple arithmetic terms, X+ 22.5% has now become X+49.5% with X remaining constant as it had been before.
The 27% reservation will bring in numbers in excess of the current intake in colleges, universities, IITs and IIMs and other professional institutions. The apprehension here is that the demand-supply ratio will be adversely affected due to inadequate infrastructure and shortage of quality faculty.
Veerappa Moily, the chairman of the overseeing committee appointed for the implementation of reservations for OBCs conceded that faculty shortage is a big concern and he attributed it to the not too attractive pay packages for teachers.
Let us look at expenditure Budget for higher education institutions in 2007. We notice a big jump in numbers. The allocation for higher education for 2007-08 went up to Rs 1,111 crore from Rs 253 crore in the year 2006. For IISc, the allocation of Rs 196 crore was way higher than Rs 85 crore in 2006. For the IIMs, the 2007 figure of Rs 103 crore was nearly three times the allocation of Rs 35 crore in 2006. This huge increase can be traced back to one important policy change that happened in 2007—the OBC reservation that was to be implemented by increasing the intake in all the central government institutions. The big hike in the 2007 allocation over 2006 was meant to take care of this. However, the Supreme Court stayed the process of implementing the new reservation policy, and this enhanced allocation went unspent in 2007 academic session. However, now that the stay has been vacated, the OBC quota has come into force as of this academic session.
The Moily Committee’s recommendation of reservation of 27% seats for the OBCs has resulted in an overall increase of 54% seats. During the implementation of the OBC reservations, no seat of the general category is expected to be cut. This is the reason why Moily committee also recommended that institutes could implement the OBC reservation in a staggered manner. A period of three years was given for the full implementation of OBC reservation. This calls for additional faculty in all higher education institutions.
The problem here is the non-availability of good and qualified faculty for the increased intake of students While lack of good pay package is without doubt one cause for attracting the best minds to the teaching profession, the real cause is the limited number of quality teachers available for recruitment.
There’s a huge shortage of quality teachers. A recent survey when there was no OBC quota shows that the nation’s seven IITs need about 900 additional faculty members. Now with the OBC quota that has increased the number of students, from where will they get the teachers? In leading technical colleges across the US and Britain, the faculty student ratio is 1:6, while at present, most IITs just manage to scrape up a 1:12, often going to 1:14. Meanwhile, it is also felt that the number of medical students has come down as a result of reduction in postgraduate seats for want of faculty. In Mumbai medical colleges for instance, the seats, which were 1,900 in 2001 have been reduced to 450 in the year 2008. If we are unable to deal with the current institutes’ faculty crunch, then what are the chances of maintaining it after the increase?
In the case of central universities and the affiliated colleges, the scene is even more grim. Here, there is no decrease in the number of students, but there has hardly been any increase in new faculty recruitment. The UGC, which is the funding body has laid down rules (almost archaic) that stipulates the teacher-student ratio to 1:20 for BA (Pass), 1:15 for BSc (General) and 1:12 for BA/BSc (Hons) courses. Any violation of these norms will result in decreased flow of the UGC grants.
Under these circumstances, most colleges have resorted to capping faculty with disastrous consequences to the standard and quality in imparting education. Some of the central universities like the University of Delhi have decided to limit the OBC reservations to 9% annually so as to reach the full target in the next three years. The three-year concession for full implementation is indeed a bonus for the universities to find solutions to the faculty shortage crisis. The Government has also to take into reckoning the limited human resources available for the education sector. To widen the ambit of the recruitment pool, the first step is to revise the pay scale of the teachers. There is an erroneous impression that teachers work only for 200 days in a year and they enjoy far less hours of work per daythan their counterparts in an office.
The vacations are spent in correction of papers, conduct of practical examinations and viva-voce and before these duties are over, the admission work for the new year starts. On an average, a college teacher corrects 25-30 honours assignments once a fortnight and double the number of pass-course assignments. The little time they can get out of their daily teaching routine is spent in preparing the lessons for the next day. Those who are not familiar with the college grind that includes other administrative functions also have a mistaken notion of the teacher’s daily load. The best of brains prefer services in private sector with huge starting salaries. Mere opening of new IITs and IIMs cannot have the desired qualitative impact if the industry-academia partnership is absent. The universities in US and Europe are fully supported by rich endowments and private industries. It is time for the government to encourage such an alliance through liberal measures to attract good private investments in higher education. This can gradually bring about the reverse brain drain so that the best Indian teachers in the West to return.
Meanwhile, the government has to provide essential infrastructure to pursue research in our universities. The pathetic state of our laboratories and libraries for want of funds is the greatest deterrent for any faculty member to continue in a university set-up. Rewards and recognition have to be in place to get quality faculty that will impact young minds.
The author was the former Dean of Students’ Welfare, Delhi University and former principal, Gargi College, DU.
