Indian Universities Facing Acute Shortage of Faculty, 4700 Posts Vacant: President

Acute shortage of faculty with over 4,700 posts vacant is prevailing in the Central Universities of India as told by President Pranab Mukherjee on 6 February while  addressing a Conference of Vice-Chancellors of Central Universities at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Delhi.

However, the President also stated that India holds the potential to be a world leader in education only if ‘we discover the will and leadership to take us to that pinnacle’.

 The conference had also seen presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and vice-chancellors of 40 universities.

President talked about the problem of acute shortage of faculty in Indian Universities stating some facts such as the vacancy figure had dipped from 6,422 in 2013 to 4,784, showing that only 25 % vacant posts have only been filled.

In the last 18 months the president had been to 58 institutes of higher education, including 17 central universities and observed those institutions to possess great potential to ascend, however the potential is untapped, he informed.

The National Mission on Education through information and communication technology (NME-ICT) and national knowledge network had connected 1,163 institutions while remaining universities are also urged to be a part of it at their earliest.

HRD ministry, the University Grants Commission and the central universities have been directed by the president to mutually take measures to improve India’s governance system and structures.

While talking about the issues in education sector, president also conveyed his concerns over the fact that Indian Universities could not make it to the ranking of top universities in the world.

He recommended universities to assign a nodal authority to communicate the university’s and student’s achievements to the global ranking agencies in appropriate perspective.