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Key issues and challenges associated with faculty shortages in India’s higher education sector and the possible remedies
Context
- This article talks about the shortage of faculty in India’s higher education system and the associated challenges.
Key details
- Higher education institutions such as colleges and universities require a sufficient number of teachers and researchers in order to disseminate knowledge in an efficient manner.
- However, the problem of faculty shortage has been witnessed in the Indian higher education sector ever since the 1980s.
- This issue of faculty shortage seems to have become permanent in recent times and has aggravated the challenges associated with it.
- According to the author, there are two key obstacles in finding feasible solutions to the issue of faculty shortages. They are:
- Absence of reliable data on the existing faculty resources in various higher education institutions.
- Treating the issue of faculty shortages merely as a quantitative issue.
Lack of reliable data on faculty shortages
- In 2009, the then Ministry of Human Resource Development constituted a task force to look into the issue which came up with a report named “Report of the Task Force On Faculty Shortage and Design of Performance Appraisal System” in 2011.
- The report noted that the existing shortage of teaching faculties in the higher education institutions in the country was not a surprise, but the surprising fact is that this perception is not supported by factual data as there is no mechanism in place to collect regular information.
- The task force report had sought for the formulation of a standard mechanism to collect and monitor the number and quality of faculty resources and the data collected must be made available on the website of the institutions.
- Even after about 10 years post these observations by the report, little has changed. This is because most of the higher education academies or institutions have messy and incomplete websites containing only partial data about their faculties.
- While the government collects information on the number of faculty members in various colleges and universities as a part of its annual All India Survey of Higher Education (AISHE), this has been a voluntary process for institutions.
- However, the responsibility for providing accurate data rests with the institution, and the data provided is not verified by any independent agency.
- Colleges and universities have often used adjunct faculty members as ‘ghost’ members i.e. such adjunct or part-time faculty members are counted as regular faculty in order to highlight a favourable teacher-student ratio.
- These obstacles have made it very difficult to get a reliable estimate of the existing faculty resources in the country.
All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE):
- This Report provides key performance indicators on the current status of higher education in the country.
- It has been compiled by the Ministry of Education based on the voluntary uploading of data by institutions of Higher Education listed in “aishe.gov.in” portal in specially designed format.
- The Ministry of Education has been conducting the annual web-based All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) since 2010-11
- AISHE aims to portray the status of higher education in the country.
- The survey covers all the Institutions in the country engaged in imparting higher education.
- Information is being collected on several parameters such as teachers, student enrolment, programmes, examination results, education finance, and infrastructure.
- Indicators of educational development such as Institution Density, Gross Enrolment Ratio, Pupil-teacher ratio, Gender Parity Index, Per Student Expenditure will also be calculated from the data collected through AISHE.
Challenges associated with treating faculty shortages as a quantitative issue
- The author notes that the stakeholders have misunderstood the problem of faculty shortages to be a quantitative issue.
- According to the author, the nature and scope of the faculty shortage is a complex issue as there are about six possible types of shortages and each one of them require a different set of remedial measures.
- These six identified types of faculty shortages are not necessarily mutually exclusive and they also show that the problem of shortage is not all about the numbers alone.
The six identified types of shortages
- Discrepancies across disciples, institutions and locations: It is often seen that there exist large discrepancies in the number of faculty members across disciplines, institutions and locations.
- There is an oversupply of faculties in a few disciplines or locations as compared to an acute shortage in others.
- This issue requires efforts to achieve a balance between demand and supply in specific disciplines in order to plug the shortages at different institutions or locations.
- The inability to hire faculties: This type of shortage is usually seen in the case of public institutions.
- Despite a desperate need, the institutions are unable to hire faculties owing to their financial status.
- Most of the public and state universities are grossly underfunded, despite a large increase in the number of students.
- Unwillingness to hire faculties: This type of shortage is seen among private institutions whose primary aim has been to make profits.
- Challenge of managing reservations in public institutions: Reservations for members belonging to OBC and SC-ST groups has reduced the pool of qualified faculties.
- Unwillingness among faculties to work at a few specific institutions: Faculty members have shown unwillingness or lack of intent to work at a few institutions due to their unfavourable location and lack of proper working or living conditions.
- Qualitative issue: The shortages of faculties can also arise due to various qualitative issues where actual shortages may not exist.
- For example, only a few candidates are really qualified for applying for PhDs programmes at Indian universities.