Dearth of faculty members in their academic coterie forces the institute to hire foreign scholars
Hoping to improve the student-teacher ratio and to bring world-class quality to its teaching methods, authorities of Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) will soon be visiting Ivy League universities such as Harvard and Yale in a bid to recruit foreign scholars as faculty.
In what is a first for the premier IITs, IIT-Delhi will be conducting roadshows in various Ivy League universities across the United States from February 2017. “A delegation of deans and heads of different departments will go to Ivy League institutes in the east coast, and to institutes in other US cities, to hire graduating students as faculty members in IIT-D,” IIT-D director Dr V Ramgopal Rao said while confirming the development.
Before the roadshow, the delegation plans to interview a few PhD candidates over Skype and then travel to meet them personally. They have been coordinating with various institutions, and getting information about scholars who are finishing their academic work.
“So far, foreign scholars had been coming to us but now we will be going to them through a roadshow, telling them about our institute and the way we function. We want to attract the best of talent from abroad,” Rao added.
The government has relaxed norms for hiring foreign faculty in IITs. “There are foreign faculty members in IITs right now as well, but they are just a handful because of stringent government norms. However, the norms are getting relaxed now to let us hire more foreign nationals.”
Foreign faculty in IITs can work as contractual employees for five years. The contract is renewable and though they are not offered permanent positions, they get paid at par with faculty members in India.
IITs have not been getting enough faculty members from within their own circles as the number of B Tech students pursuing PhD has declined. “Earlier, many B Tech students would go to foreign universities, complete their PhD and come back and teach in IITs here. But that number has now reduced considerably. We are not getting good scholars to teach in our institutions here. This is also one of the reasons that we are attracting faculty from abroad,” Rao said.
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