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Jan 19, 2021

NCBC Seeks Inquiry Into Govt Panel's Recommendation to Exempt IITs From Faculty Quotas

The Commission took cognizance of a complaint which said the recommendation will impact the diversity in the institutions and will be against the spirit of the constitution.
The entrance of IIT Delhi. Photo: 
By Eatcha/Wikimedia Commons CC BY SA 4.0

New Delhi: Taking cognizance of a complaint it has received, the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) has sought an inquiry into a government-appointed panel’s recommendation that IITs should be exempt from reservations in faculty appointments.

According to the Indian Express, the Commission had written to the education ministry’s higher education secretary Amit Khare on January 5, seeking a “compliance report” within 15 days of the letter’s receipt. The ministry received the letter on Monday, the newspaper said.

The NCBC took cognizance of a complaint filed by Dharmendra Kumar, who is the president of the Technical Universities Teachers Association (TUTA). Kumar’s complaint requested the Commission “to do the needful” to ensure that the government does not accept the committee’s recommendation, the Indian Express report says.

The Centre had appointed a committee, chaired by IIT Delhi director V. Ramgopal Rao, in April last year to look into “effective implementation of reservation” in student admissions and faculty positions at IITs. However, the panel recommended that the 23 IITs should be exempted from reservations in faculty appointment, by adding the institutes to the list of “Institutions of Excellence”, which allows them to bypass reservations.

To improve diversity, it suggested that “outreach campaigns” and “targeted faculty recruitment” should be done.

Though the panel had submitted its five-page report to the Ministry of Education on June 17, it was made public only on December 16, through a Right to Information Act application filed in Uttar Pradesh.

Also Read: How Meritorious and Inclusive Are Our Institutions of Higher Education?

According to the Indian Express report, Kumar, in his complaint to the NCBC, questioned the panel’s claim that ‘suitable’ candidates from SC/ST and OBC communities could not be found and therefore, faculty positions had to be kept vacant.

“… there are many IITs which were established more than 60-70 years ago but never obtained world ranking even within top 200 despite being there more than 95% faculty of these institutions from unreserved categories,” he wrote.

“Therefore, it is a baseless point mentioned by the committee… Also, it will impact the diversity issues in these instutions, which will be against the spirit of the Constitution of India.”

The panel’s recommendation has come under heavy criticism. IIT Bombay’s Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle, a student group, had condemned the panel, saying, “There exists sufficient data to suggest that the lack of qualified candidates from the reserved categories was never a reason for their lack of admissions in PhD programmes at the IITs.”

NCBC chairperson Bhagwan Lal Sahni told The Print in late December that the Commission will take up the panel’s “inappropriate” recommendation with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). “IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) are government-funded institutes. How can they be exempted from this fundamental government policy? It is an inappropriate recommendation to make,” he said.

“In fact, there is a case to investigate if they even fill reserved seats for SCs, STs and OBCs at the level of faculty and staff, or if they simply use the ‘Not found suitable (NFS)’ provision to circumvent reservation,” he added.

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