Thursday, April 22, 2010

IIT, IIM staff crunch: Increase in vacancies in 2009-10 : Mr HRD Minister what your "Task Force" is doing?

IIT, IIM staff crunch

New Delhi, April 21 (PTI): The IITs and IIMs are facing a shortage of faculty members despite an attractive pay structure, good accommodation and other perks, the Lok Sabha was told today.

IIT Kharagpur has a maximum vacancy of 299 posts, followed by 222 in IIT Bombay, 194 in IIT Roorkee, 138 in IIT Madras, 78 in IIT Delhi, 69 in IIT Kanpur and 65 in IIT Guwahati, HRD minister of state D. Purandeswari said in a written reply.

The number of vacancies have increased from 877 in the seven old IITs in 2008-09 to 1,065 in 2009-10, the minister said.

The vacancies in these institutions in 2007-08 was 971.

There are 95 vacanies in the seven IIMs. IIM-Bangalore has a maximum vacancy of 35 posts followed by 29 in IIM-Ahmedabad.

“Recruitment of faculty is a continuous process and all efforts are being made by the institutes to fill up vacant posts. Institutions have been employing suitable strategies to attract and retain quality faculty which include attractive pay structure, provisions of good residential accommodation, medical facilities and initial research grants,” Purandeswari said.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Babus Rule The Roost: Another U-Turn of Kapil Sibal

Pasted from - (http://binupramod.posterous.com/babus-rule-the-roost)
A former private secretary to Kapil Sibal is set to head India’s largest central government school chain less than a year after the human resource development minister objected to bureaucrats occupying top education posts.
The HRD ministry has recommended Avinash Dikshit, a 1986 batch officer of the Indian Defence Accounts Service, for the post of commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, lying vacant since October 31, top government officials told The Telegraph.

Dikshit was a private secretary to Sibal between 2004 and 2006 when the Congress leader was the minister for science and technology in the first UPA government.

The HRD ministry has asked the appointments committee of the cabinet headed by the Prime Minister to approve Dikhsit’s nomination. The committee is the apex panel for top government appointments and is likely to clear Dikshit’s name soon, sources said.

The Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan runs over 1,000 schools across the country and in a few foreign countries. Over a million students study in the Kendriya Vidyalayas.

Dikshit’s name was recommended by the ministry after a search-cum-selection panel set up by Sibal found him most appropriate for the post.

No one, including other contenders for the post, is known to have either formally voiced criticism of the manner in which the selection was conducted or questioned Dikshit’s record as an official.

But Sibal’s stamp of approval for the appointment of his own former aide suggests that he has backtracked on a stand he had taken last year.

Last year, Sibal had indicated to his officials that he did not want a career bureaucrat or police officer to head any educational body.

Academicians across the country had for several years criticised the government’s education appointments policy, blaming it for the increased bureaucratisation and politicisation of education.

A bureaucrat or policeman, dependent on his political masters for career promotions is unlikely to challenge politicians on matters of academic autonomy, these academicians had argued.

In official file notings, Sibal had questioned the practice of appointing officials removed from education to top posts at academic bodies or institutions — a practice common under his predecessors Arjun Singh and Murli Manohar Joshi.

Sibal’s comments to his officials appeared to finally indicate a shift towards academicians governing educational institutions and bodies.

But the ministry’s decision to pick Dikshit suggests that the minister has decided to abandon his opposition to the appointment of career bureaucrats to top education posts.

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