The Human Resource Ministry’s (HRD) decision to permit even non-PhDs to take up a lecturer's post at the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), is being perceived as another blow to IITs. It was only a few days back that the professors expressed their dissatisfaction and registered their protest with the government against its decision to ignore the full recommendations of the Goverdhan Committee and pay "lower salaries".
Currently, none of the IITs has faculty members who are non-PhDs. But the ministry justified its stand in the light of the fact that there is 20-30 per cent faculty crunch at all IITs. Moreover, at least 10 per cent jobs have been reserved at the lecturer's level, an obsolete term that has been scrapped from academia around the world.
While the directive on taking non-PhDs as lecturers is optional, the new clause may make it difficult for IITs to attract quality talent. IIT directors and professors also fear massive brain-drain in the country because students graduating from IITs may prefer to join foreign universities where a fresher begins his career as an assistant professor and not as a lecturer.
M Chakraborty, director, IIT-Bhubaneswar, says: “Anybody joining an IIT as faculty should be proud of it. The existing faculty go through rigorous training and need to have series of qualifications before they can join any IIT as faculty, which means they start working rather late compared to fresh graduates from IITs who earn much better salaries than the faculty. Allowing non-PhDs to join as faculty would also mean dismissing the hard work and qualifications of the existing faculty.”
Gautam Barua, director of IIT-Guwahati, concurs: “We have been very finicky about who we choose as faculty. Earlier, one advertisement for two faculty posts would fetch us five applications. Now advertising for one faculty post fetches 40-50 applications. So we have to be careful about who we choose.”
Most directors also feel that non-PhD faculty would not only mean stooping below the existing quality standards but would also mean students’ education suffering. A non-PhD cannot be a guide for students pursuing PhD.