HRD directive on non-PhDs
The HRD ministry has now allowed non-PhDs to join the IITs as lecturers. What's more shocking is that at least 10% jobs have been reserved at the lecturer's level ... making it tough for IITs to attract talent at the level of assistant professor is another clause that mandates the tech schools to take only those with three years' experience.
Close to three decades ago, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) upped the bar for selecting faculty: only PhDs were allowed to
take classes. Diluting that lofty standard, the HRD ministry has now allowed non-PhDs to join as lecturers. What's more shocking is that at least 10% jobs have been reserved at the lecturer's level, an obsolete term that has been scrapped from academia around the world.
Making it tough for IITs to attract talent at the level of assistant professor is another clause that mandates the tech schools to take only those with three years' experience. IIT directors fear it might result in bright students preferring to take up posts at foreign universities where a fresher begins his career as an assistant professor and not as a lecturer. Earlier, the IITs too were taking fresh, bright PhDs at assistant professor level.
While the directive on taking non-PhDs as lecturers is optional, the directors are clueless why it was inserted. "We don't need it. The four-tier recruitment concept is regressive and I don't understand why the government needs to disturb something that is in good equilibrium," asked an IIT director, who refused to be named.
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