Is this elitism?: NIT Hamirpur, others seek faculty only from reputed CFTIs; educationists express dismay
A recent tweet shared by Group Vice-Chancellor of the BITS Pilani campuses, Dr V Ramgopal Rao, has re-ignited an old debate of faculty recruitment in eminent and established government institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), International Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and so on.
The tweet posted read, “I am told more and more institutions are beginning to do this in the country,” it continues with, “To disregard merit and shortlist candidates just based on the source of institutional funding is trivialising the entire faculty recruitment process.”
What the notice says
With this post is an attachment, a circular posted by the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh which states that “To limit the number of applicants (new entrants) to be called for presentation/personal interview to reasonable numbers, the Institute has the right to set higher norms for scrutiny than minimum prescribed.”
The notice goes on to state the points of qualification that should be granted to the PhD degree holders on the basis of the institutions they belong to.
The notice says that the students who have pursued a degree from the top 500 institutions in QS/World University Rankings/IITs/IIMs/IISc are to be granted the maximum number of points, that is, 25, whereas, if the candidate has pursued the degree from institutions that are centrally funded or do not fall under the top 100 institution in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), they will be granted only five points.
Rao, who is also the former director of IIT Delhi, further mentions in his tweet that using the source of institute funding for shortlisting is not a plausible way to recruit efficient candidates. “Many State and Private Universities rank much higher compared to many IITs, NITs and CFTIs,” he adds. He further goes on to say that students hailing from other universities who might be much more qualified and have better credentials than these candidates, will not be fairly evaluated given the metrics of evaluation.
NIT Hamirpur is not the only one
But NIT Hamirpur is not the only institution with such a directive, there are several Centrally Funded Technical Institutes (CFTIs) in India such as NITs like Kurukshetra, Trichy, Warangal, Calicut and IIIT Gwalior that also adhere to similar regulation while recruiting for the advertised faculty posts.
The advertisement of recruitment in these institutions claim that the institutions are following the directive released as per the Ministry of Human Resource Development - no. 7, GoI, MHRD, F.No.33-9/2011-TS.III, dated 16th April, 2019 that states experience including prior to implementation of NIRF in the following institutions will be considered:
i. Fully funded Central Educational Institutions
ii. IIMs and other management institutions ranked by NIRF upto 50 for any two years
iii. State Educational Institutions funded by respective State Governments;
iv. Other Educational Institutions ranked by NIRF upto 100 in overall, Universities, Engineering, upto 50 for Pharmacy and 10 for Architecture, for any two years.
But the directive also mentions, “However, with regard to recommendation on Institute of repute, the BOGs of respective Institute may take a call on relaxing the criteria, if needed with recorded justification.”
But looking at the criteria of “experience” (mentioned below), released by NIT Warangal mentions nothing about relaxations as such but instead, makes the criteria of selection more stringent.
Priority of short listing with regard to qualifying degrees, for each category shall be as under.
i) All three degrees (UG / PG / Ph.D.) from IIT/NIT/CFTI/CFI/IIM
ii) Any Two degrees (UG / PG / Ph.D.) from IIT/NIT/CFTI/CFI/IIM
iii) UG Degree from IIT/NIT/CFTI/CFI
iv) PG Degree from IIT/NIT/CFTI/CFI/IIM
v) Ph.D. from IIT/NIT/CFTI/CFI/IIM
vi) Ph.D./PG/UG Degrees from other reputed Universities with NIRF-2022 Ranking up to 10 in overall and 50 in Engineering or Sciences.
Educationists express dismay
When EdexLive reached out to Dr Shekhar C Mande, former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India, who also shared the NIT Hamirpur notice on Twitter, he said that it should not matter where the person had completed his education from as it does not measure the competency level of the students.
“One cannot discriminate against students coming from an institution that does not have a good NIRF ranking. Let us take the example of the Chennai Mathematical Institute which harbours intelligent minds but is not in the top 100 NIRF rankings, does that mean that anyone from the institute will not be equivalent to a student passing out from a top institute in India?”
He further adds that by imposing such a rule the institutes are losing out on good candidates. “I do not think it is correct for an institute like NIT Hamirpur to advertise for the post in this manner,” says Mande.
But there are institutes that do not adhere to such regulations based on the degree of the candidate. The faculty advertisement released by IISER Pune states that, “The Institute may restrict the number of candidates to be called for the selection process to a reasonable limit, on the basis of publication record, quality of future research proposal and experience higher than that of minimum prescribed in the advertisement.”
The advertisement by IISER Pune clearly prioritises an individual based on their calibre and research experience the candidate has accrued over the period of time, unlike the mandate that clearly does not provide any justification regarding the enrollment of an individual for the position of a faculty based on not the person’s potential but just a meagre degree, thereby, reducing their worth.
EdexLive also reached out to Dr Rao and inquired into the procedure which IITs employ to recruit faculty members, to this, he said, "Institutions like IIT Delhi do not go by the rankings of the institute the candidates are from, we look at their research publications and if that fulfils the criteria, the person is then called for a seminar where it is seen how the person is engaging with a subject. If the person is found to be knowledgeable they are shortlisted for the final round of interviews consisting of external experts chaired by the Director. The appointments are then approved by the Board.”
He also asserts that using NIRF rankings for recruitment is justifiable but to an extent, as the ranking parameters include the research quality and research culture of a particular institution but he adds that to recruit someone based on the source of funding for these institutions “cannot be justifiable”.
He says that there are other private universities and non-CFTIs that are ranked ahead of many NITs, but students from such universities, despite their various achievements during their PhDs, were not even shortlisted and rejected due to this specific criterion. He states that this particular procedure of recruitment is “fundamentally wrong”.
