India’s Faculty Shortage Worsens, With 50% of Positions Vacant

New Delhi — Even as India proceeds with plans to open dozens of new higher-education institutions, its faculty shortage seems to have worsened. A new government report says that about 50 percent of positions at federal and state-financed universities are vacant, The Statesman reported on Sunday.

Earlier unofficial estimates had put the vacancy rate at around 35 percent.

“The house of higher education is not in good shape, at the moment,” says the report, which was issued by the pay-review committee of the University Grants Commission, the country’s university regulator.

The report warns that the faculty shortage may prevent the government from meeting its goal of setting up 80 new universities, engineering schools, management schools, and research institutes, along with more than 350 undergraduate colleges.

G.K. Chadha, the committee’s chairman, said in the report that “attractive pay packages and better serving conditions” for professors should be the first step so that the faculty shortage does not become what he called the “Achilles’ heel” of India’s education system.

The committee recommended a 70- to 90-percent salary increase for professors. It also recommended raising the retirement age for professors. —Shailaja Neelakantan