Other States - Orissa

Lack of quality faculty a cause for concern

BHUBANESWAR: When the prestigious Ravenshaw University came out with one of its largest faculty recruitment drive recently, a few thousand aspirants submitted their resumes for various posts.

But to the utter surprise of authorities, in some subjects there was not a single candidate who could come closer to expectations. As a result, the university is mulling over inviting applications for the second time for few positions.

When Ravenshaw College, which has a glorious past, is struggling to find suitable candidates, the condition of other institutes could be well imagined.

Even as Bhubaneswar is fast becoming a leading education centre in the eastern India, lack of experienced and quality faculties has become a major headache for almost all the institutions here.

“We had invited applications for little over 150 faculty positions. Subsequently, 7,000 candidates submitted their applications for different posts. Despite presence of such a large number of candidates, we may have to re-advertise for certain positions,” Debas Chhotray, Vice-Chancellor of Ravenshaw University told The Hindu.

City-based Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB), too finds itself in such a difficult situation.

“It is extremely difficult to find experienced faculties. We are also regularly seeking such teaching staff for an institution like ours where fat salary is not a hindrance. There is a good number of Oriyas who teaches outside countries, but they don’t come to their own State,” XIMB Director Fr. P. T Joseph said here on Tuesday.

Situation is likely to become worse when world-class institutions like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bhubaneswar, National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) and International Institute of Information Technology, Bhubaneswar (IITBH), would start scouting for quality faculties for them.

Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT), which is the umbrella body of all government and private technical colleges in the State, has been struggling to ensure standard of teachers’ in colleges.

There were about 20 engineering colleges and more than a dozen of management schools in and around the capital city. But in many cases, students those get passed out a particular college go on to become faculty in the same college.

Reasons cited for the faculty-crunch are many. As most of the students from technical institutions get absorbed in good jobs immediately after their graduation, very few opt for higher studies with an aim to become teacher.

Moreover, many institutions whose sole objective is to accumulate as many as students hardly give attention to retain good teachers. BPUT has been trying to conduct various short-term courses to improve standards of the teaching faculties in engineering colleges.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu