More than 30% faculty positions are vacant in engineering colleges: Report by MHRD

According to a report of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), around 30% of faculty positions in private engineering institutes at the undergraduate (UG) level throughout India are vacant. Following are some of the finding s of the report by the MHRD.

• As per data provided by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in December 2014, the average faculty shortage across India is of 30%.
• In the states of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Gujarat, there is over 33% shortage of engineering faculty.
• The state of Tamil Nadu (TN), which has the most number of engineering colleges after AP, has a faculty shortage of 27.9%.
• All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has approved around four times more faculty posts for engineering institutes across the country than what is actually required. AICTE is the statutory body of the technical education system throughout India. Although the council has approved 15.8 lakh faculty posts, only a little over four lakhs are necessary. Still, the colleges are facing the severe shortage with a mere 2.95 lakh professors.
• The country's premier engineering institutes are also facing the faculty crisis. There is around 37% faculty vacancy across the existing 16 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).  The sanctioned faculty strength at all the IITs is 6,944, while the actual strength is just 4,308.
• As per reports, The situation is similar in institutes of other courses as well. Around 40% of the overall faculty positions in higher education institutes of India are vacant.

A majority of the private engineering institutes are facing the shortage of qualified professionals to fill up the faculty positions. The lack of quality faculty will have an adverse effect on academics and research, which in turn will hamper the placements. All this would lead to a decrease in engineering admissions aas the better faculty holds the key to quality education.