After a parliament panel questioned the HRD ministry on the poor implementation of the reservation policy in educational institutes, the HRD ministry has directed all central educational institutes including the IIMs and IITs to comply with the reservation policy in hiring the faculty.
As per reservation of teacher’s cadre act, central government institutes are required to reserve a quota of 15 per cent for SCs, 7.5 per cent for STs, 27 per cent for OBCs and 10 per cent for economically backward Classes (EWS).
Though the IITs were adhering to these norms to some extent by reserving posts at entry level jobs of an assistant professor. But the IIMs have not at all been following this norm.
Using a 40-year old order by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) which said that reservations are not extended to technical posts as an excuse to not hire people from backward classes, IIM Ahmedabad was not following the norms laid down by the union government. Other IIMs chose to not follow the reservation policy anyway.
But now the HRD ministry has given a clear directive to all IIMs that they will have to follow the reservation system in hiring faculty members.
There is a big deficit of diversity at the country’s two premium institutes. The SCs, STs, and OBCs together made up to nine percent of faculty in IITs and 6 per cent in IIMs as per the data submitted by the HRD ministry in parliament in 2018.
The IIMs consist up to 90 per cent of general category faculty members. Out of the 18 IIMs (excluding Ahmedabad and Indore), 16 did not have a single ST faculty member, 12 did not have a single SC member. SCs and STs forms only 1.5 per cent of the whole faculty talent pool at IIMs.
