Fill 27,693 vacancies in IITs, NITs, central universities by 2023-end: Panel to education ministry

NEW DELHI: The ministry of education is yet to fill over 27,000 vacancies across central higher education institutions across the country, a parliamentary committee report revealed.

The vacancies include both teaching and non-teaching staff in central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), Indian Institutes of Information and Technology (IIIT), National Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management (IIM),, Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) and Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc Bangalore).

As per the official data, the ministry filled around 6,500 posts from July 2022 till February 24, 2023 – less a fifth of the total 34,099 posts vacant in these institutions.

In its report, presented in parliament on Tuesday, the Rajya Sabha Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, has asked the union government to fill the vacancies by the end of this year. The committee further recommends that a “special recruitment campaign” be conducted to achieve the target.

“In order to see a noticeable improvement, the committee recommends the department to take a proactive approach for monitoring the progress and actions being taken towards filling up of these vacancies in universities, premier institutions under AICTE, IIMs, IITs, NITs etc., in a time-bound manner with permanent faculties as far as possible by the end of 2023,” the panel observed.

IIT, NIT, Central Universities: Vacancies

Among the IITs, out of the 9,773 teaching and non teaching vacant posts, the ministry was able to fill 1,473 positions. In the case of central universities, a little over 2,500 positions were filled against the total 15,099 vacancies. Bulk vacancies were also found in the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) where 6,377 positions were vacant and only 1,705 filled.

Vacancies and posts filled

Teacher recruitment in ‘mission-mode’

Education ministry’s department of higher education replied that the vacancies will be filled over the next one-and-a-half years. “Department of Higher Education submitted that the Ministry is committed to fill existing vacancies against sanctioned posts in mission mode and has identified posts across all central educational institutions (both faculty and other support staff), which would be filled over the next one and a half year,” the panel report stated.

The vacancies are monitored by the department of personnel and training which also reports regular updates. A portal has been developed for centralised monitoring of real time filling up of vacancies in each and every institution, the department further stated in the report.

In the budget session, the education ministry data showed that as many as 3,874 teaching positions earmarked for candidates from historically-marginalised Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (SC, ST, OBC), as well as the economically weaker sections and the disabled, are vacant in central universities.