 "IIM-A: We need to improve faculty compensation")
While stressing on the urgency to recruit more faculty for the institute, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), on Saturday said in order to attract world class faculty, one needs to improve faculty compensation at the institute.
"We want to have a world class institution and one of the key requirements for that is to have top quality faculty. Our current faculty is top quality, but it is stretched. We want to increase the number of faculty, but we want to maintain the quality as well. There is a felt need of urgency, we need to bring in more faculty," said Ashish Nanda, director of IIM-A. The newly-appointed director of the country's premier management institute told reporters: "If you want to bring in top class faculty in management schools, you have to offer them a kind of experience that is world class. Everything we do is world class, be it research environment or students, except one, faculty compensation. We have to improve that," Nanda said. IIM-A, between January and September 2013, had eight new faculty members join the institute.
In addition to Nanda, over half of new joinees at the institute come with international work experience.
The chairman of the board of governors, IIM-A, A M Naik, said he would take up the matter of compensation at the earliest. "If you want a very good professor, you need to pay him reasonably well, if not like a corporate."
He added: "Today, when a student graduates from the IIM at the age of 23 or 24 years, the minimum salary they get is Rs 19 lakh. And the top 10-20 per cent get more than a crore. And what are we paying our very experienced professor, with over 20 years of experience, around Rs 16-17 lakh. Whether it is government or private institutes, this fundamental issue needs to be addressed."
Naik said the issue of compensation would be taken up at the meeting with the ministry of human resource development (MHRD). "Once in three months, there is a meeting under the leadership of the MHRD minister in which all directors of IIMs go, and even chairpersons can go if they want to. There, we would discuss this issue," Naik said, adding all IIMs should be facing this problem. He did not wish to share further details saying once the issue was taken up for discussion, there would be an expert committee that would deliberate on the matter.
As on how to raise funds for paying higher compensations, the director said there were several options like getting funds from donors and alumnus, apart from conducting executive programmes for funds, as well from consulting fees. No decision was yet taken on whether to raise fees.
In another move, the institute now also wants to have more international members on the board of the institute. Naik added in the new IIM Bill, he has demanded that there be a provision to have more global members on the board of the institutes. He also talked of demanding more flexibility when choosing board members.
"IIM-A was started by a society promoted by the likes of Vikram Sarabhai and Kasturbhai Lalbhai. We want to be able to take more members from the society and also from the alumni," he added.
The institute on Saturday appointed Vasant Gandhi and Rekha Jain to the IIM-A board as faculty representatives.
"We want to have a world class institution and one of the key requirements for that is to have top quality faculty. Our current faculty is top quality, but it is stretched. We want to increase the number of faculty, but we want to maintain the quality as well. There is a felt need of urgency, we need to bring in more faculty," said Ashish Nanda, director of IIM-A. The newly-appointed director of the country's premier management institute told reporters: "If you want to bring in top class faculty in management schools, you have to offer them a kind of experience that is world class. Everything we do is world class, be it research environment or students, except one, faculty compensation. We have to improve that," Nanda said. IIM-A, between January and September 2013, had eight new faculty members join the institute.
In addition to Nanda, over half of new joinees at the institute come with international work experience.
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This takes the total pool to 91 faculty members. IIM-A has a sactioned strength of 120 faculty members.
The chairman of the board of governors, IIM-A, A M Naik, said he would take up the matter of compensation at the earliest. "If you want a very good professor, you need to pay him reasonably well, if not like a corporate."
He added: "Today, when a student graduates from the IIM at the age of 23 or 24 years, the minimum salary they get is Rs 19 lakh. And the top 10-20 per cent get more than a crore. And what are we paying our very experienced professor, with over 20 years of experience, around Rs 16-17 lakh. Whether it is government or private institutes, this fundamental issue needs to be addressed."
Naik said the issue of compensation would be taken up at the meeting with the ministry of human resource development (MHRD). "Once in three months, there is a meeting under the leadership of the MHRD minister in which all directors of IIMs go, and even chairpersons can go if they want to. There, we would discuss this issue," Naik said, adding all IIMs should be facing this problem. He did not wish to share further details saying once the issue was taken up for discussion, there would be an expert committee that would deliberate on the matter.
As on how to raise funds for paying higher compensations, the director said there were several options like getting funds from donors and alumnus, apart from conducting executive programmes for funds, as well from consulting fees. No decision was yet taken on whether to raise fees.
In another move, the institute now also wants to have more international members on the board of the institute. Naik added in the new IIM Bill, he has demanded that there be a provision to have more global members on the board of the institutes. He also talked of demanding more flexibility when choosing board members.
"IIM-A was started by a society promoted by the likes of Vikram Sarabhai and Kasturbhai Lalbhai. We want to be able to take more members from the society and also from the alumni," he added.
The institute on Saturday appointed Vasant Gandhi and Rekha Jain to the IIM-A board as faculty representatives.