Govt okays shared faculty plan to meet staff crunch

Faculty members in universities and colleges can earn more by teaching in another institution, and also avail of a six-month educational assignment in a foreign university, said the 12th Five Year Plan document approved at a meeting headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Sep 17, 2012, 01:23:04 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Faculty members in universities and colleges can earn more by teaching in another institution, and also avail of a six-month educational assignment in a foreign university, said the 12th Five Year Plan document approved at a meeting headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday.

These are some of the measures suggested to meet the expected faculty crunch - over 50% in the next four years - with the government aiming to increase the Gross Enrollment Ratio - the number of youth in higher education - from the present 17% to 25.3% by 2017.

"Without faculty development, achieving the target will be impossible," the 12th Plan document said, recommending the setting up of a centre to facilitate faculty exchange programmes between Indian and foreign universities.

The centre would look at opportunities for top Indian faculty members to work in foreign universities for a maximum of six months, and also coordinate in joint research programmes.

"One's salary should remain intact while teaching or doing research in a foreign university," the document, which has been accepted by the human resources development ministry, said.

Those who may not get an opportunity to teach abroad may be allowed to take up a second teaching opportunity within India.

"We have suggested reasonable restrictions to prevent its misuse," said an official of the University Grants Commission, which suggested the scheme.

According to the faculty sharing proposal, a maximum of five teachers from one department will be allowed to teach in the second institution.

Although the basic salary of the teacher will remain protected in the parent institution, the second institution will have to provide a house and Rs 30,000 per month to shared faculty members.

"This can help in setting up or running institutions in educationally backward and far-flung regions," the Plan Panel document said.

However, all this will come at a price.

The panel wants to introduce the accountability mechanism for faculty, based on student feedback and research work.

It also wants new faculty members to be confirmed after five years, based on students' feedback and annual performance appraisal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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