Teacher crunch worries IIMs

A few months ago, after getting a doctorate from IIM Ahmedabad, a research student joined Mittal Group for $2,00,000 a year. Another Ph.D student of IIM Calcutta landed a job in a UK bank for $2,50,000.

Updated on: Jan 16, 2006, 04:55:00 IST

PTI | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A few months ago, after getting a doctorate from IIM Ahmedabad, a research student joined Mittal Group for $2,00,000 a year. Another Ph.D student of IIM Calcutta landed a job in a UK bank for $2,50,000.

Both joined the research departments of these companies. The trend is there in other IIMs, too.

The trend spells doom for Indian Institutes of Management, which are worried about not being able to attract good faculty.

The last few years have been critical for IIMs as the boom in economy has made top companies look for experienced hands in research. “We lose four to five very good research students every year to these companies. It was just one or two a few years ago. For me, the tougher job is finding a good replacement though I have over 300 job applications,” said Bakul Dholakia, director, IIM Ahmedabad. The story is the same in most of the IIMs. “There is a shortage of 25-30 per cent in faculty in most IIMs,” said Shekhar Chaudhari, director, IIM Calcutta. The scene is slightly better in older institutes like IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore, where the shortage is between 15-20 per cent. “Problem arises when we have to start new programmes,” Dholakia said. Newer IIMs in Lucknow and Kozhikode have a higher teacher crunch.

The situation is unlikely to improve, most IIM directors say, unless the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) looses its grip over recruitment. “We are bound to follow MHRD rules and regulations on recruitment and salary for the faculty. In this we have no autonomy,” said a professor.

The IIMs, on their part, have reportedly asked the ministry to revise the guidelines for appointing faculty. “The government can stipulate the basic criteria for appointing the faculty including salary. Paying higher should be left to us. This is a way to attract good and experienced faculty back to IIMs,” said a director. IIM directors say that faculty crunch is a major reason why the MHRD was not in favour of expanding their campuses outside the present areas.

The ministry, while rejecting IIM Bangalore’s proposal to set up a campus in Singapore, had suggested that the institutes should look for providing management education in states like Bihar.

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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