Faced by faculty shortage, IIT-Madras recruits 40 faculty members a year

Chennai: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, is short on its faculty strength by over 200 compared with its sanctioned strength and has been recruiting 40 faculty members every year to solve the issue.The human resources development ministry had sanctioned 800 faculty posts for IIT-M while the institute had about 560 teachers at present, Director Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi told reporters on the sidelines of the commencement of admission at IIT-Tirupati and IIT-Palakkad on Wednesday.

“After OBC reservation was increased to 50 per cent five years ago across all IITs our student strength too went up. We started recruiting new faculty after. As of now we are short by 200 faculty members,” he said. With recruitment being done the institute would reach 750 faculty number by 2020.“We need to have 50 students in a class but now we have 60 and in the course of time we will bring it to 50 after appointment of new faculty,” the director said.

He pointed out that several young faculty use tablet computers to teach in classroom and upload their classroom notes onto their website for students to download whereas older faculty still continue with the chalk and board method.IIT-Madras has produced 180 Ph.Ds last year. This year 220 research scholars have completed their Ph.D and the director hopes that the number would touch 400 in the next three years.

“Only one-third of them join the faculty team while the rest join industry for work,” he said. IIT-Madras admits 800 students for B.Tech, 450 (M.Tech), 150 (M.Sc), 90 (MBA), 45 (M.A), 300 (MS) and 500 (Ph.D).

IIT-Tirupati, Palakkad to function from August

IIT-Tirupati plans to conduct classes from a 61,000 square feet private college campus in Chadalawada Nagar on the Tirupati-Renigunta Road from August this year. Prof. K.N. Satyanarayana, professor in-charge of IIT-Tirupati said that a few faculty members from IIT-Madras and some faculty who recently retired would teach students at the institute until new faculty were appointed.

“We will have the best faculty to teach at the new IITs and equipment installed at the institute will also be new so students need not have any apprehension about the quality of newer IITs,” he said.The retired faculty who would teach at IIT-Tirupati and Palakkad had served in various capacities, including dean and head of departments at IIT-Madras, Prof. Satyanarayana said. “There are several colleges lying vacant across the country so we had no problem in getting readymade buildings for our temporary campus,” he said.

According to Prof.P.B. Sunil Kumar, professor in-charge of IIT-Palakkad, institute would start functioning from temporary campus at Ahalya Integrated Campus at Palakkad in August. The 500 acre permanent campus would be made ready at Pudussery, 15 kms away from the temporary one. IIT-Madras mentors both the new IITs.