Elite central institutes like IIT, AIIMS, NISER, Institute of Physics and the Central Institute of Odisha (CUO) Koraput in the State are facing acute shortage of teachers affecting the study cycle severely.
According to sources, while IIT-Bhubaneswar has 71 vacant positions against the 171 sanctioned permanent positions; Institute of Physics has 13 vacant positions out of 30, the CUO has 36 positions vacant out of 54, NIT-Rourkela has 95 vacancies out of 370 and AIIMS-Bhubaneswar has 254 vacancies out of 320 positions. The situation is the most worrisome in NISER, which has as many as 200 of the 260 sanctioned permanent positions vacant.
Increase in retirement age limit and hike in remunerations have not helped. In some cases, the institutes are finding it tough to get deserving candidates. In others, the candidates don’t accept the job offers made by these institutes.
“We have 30 approved positions out of which 13 are vacant. We had offered six positions to deserving candidates, out of which only three accepted the offers. While two of them haven’t responded yet, one has declined the offer. We would have to restart the hiring process all over again. lack of good scientists to guide the students is delaying the process. Also, the retirement age is 60 years for us, whereas is it is 65 years in many other central institutes. This is driving away candidates from us,” said Institute of Physics Director Sudhakar Panda.
IIT- Bhubaneswar also faces the heat due to lack of professors. The IITs should have a recommended student-teacher ratio of 10:1. While there are 925 seats in the institutes, there are 170 recommended positions. However, only 99 have been filled up yet, forcing existing professors to take extra classes to manage the syllabus.
Same is the case with Central University. Five years after inauguration, there is not a single professor out of its nine approved positions. While 17 out of 18 approved associate professor positions are lying vacant, 10 out of 27 assistant professors are vacant affecting the study cycle severely in the institute.