This is yet another move by the Central Government to improve the teacher-student ratio.
The Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) has decided to rehire retired teachers to fill the vacant positions in the government-run institutions and universities, which lackthe required number of teachersfor their students.
This move will ensure that the shortfall of faculty is fulfilled and the vacant positions are also filled.
The retired teachers, less than 75 years of age, will only be rehired if they are medically fit and have a good teaching record. Also, these teachers will be involved in academics alone, and not in any admin work.
The Central Government is concerned over the quality of education in the institutions and universities it runs. In the past, it has taken many initiatives to improve the teacher–student ratio.
Many of the IITs and other institutions have already taken steps to fill the vacancies of teaching staff. These institutions are inviting their alumni, guest faculty, foreign faculty, and so on, to fill the availableopenings.
The newly-opened central universities have 53.28 percent vacancies and the national institutes of technology (NITs) have 47 percent vacancies. Recently, the HRD minister announced a recruitment drive across campuses to fill these posts.
The Ministry has directed the vice-chancellors of the universities to bring down the vacancy rate to 10 percent. They will get help from the Government in this regard. The Ministry suggests offering research scholars from foreign varsities teaching assignments in these universities.
As per HRD records, the Central University of Haryana has 75.11 vacancies as on April 1, 2017, while Delhi University has 54.75 percent vacancies for permanent teaching staff.