New Delhi: The President Mr Pranab Mukherjee expressed concern over the large scale shortage of faculty positions in the higher educational institutes (HEI), which has plagued our institutions for a long time. While addressing the concluding session of the three-day second Visitor’s Conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan today (18 November 2016), Mr Mukherjee said that the vacancy level has reduced only marginally, from 39 percent in 2014 to 36 percent in 2016.
The President some improvement has been visible recently in faculty positions across institutes as Central Universities have been able to fill 70 percent vacancies, which is a very good performance. “We need innovative mechanisms to address this problem on a long-term basis. I compliment MHRD for launching the Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) last year under which close to 800 experts from abroad have evinced their interest in teaching in Indian institutions. This programme has to be given a further push so that in the next one or two years, not 800 but 8,000 foreign experts enroll under this initiative.”
Commenting on the Research and Development infrastructure, The President said quality research must get our utmost attention. “The Prime Minister’s Fellowship Scheme for Doctoral Research, which is a collaborative effort of Department of Science and Technology and CII and supports full-time PhD scholars, is a good initiative. The pan IIT-IISc initiative of IMPRINT India has great potential in addressing the immediate requirements of society through quality research at these institutes. He called upon academic leaders of institutes of liberal arts and humanities to also undertake similar initiatives,” he added.
Mr Mukherjee said with over 1,800 MoUs with domestic and foreign institutions, and over 530 MoUs with industry, the central institutions are on the right path. “Central institutions of higher learning are getting truly internationalized. But the key to success lies in the implementation of the MoUs”, the President added.
Earlier in the concluding day of Visitor’s Conference, Action Taken Reports were submitted by different groups of Heads of institutions. Recommendations were also submitted by groups on the agenda items of the Conference namely: (a) Creating world-class higher educational institutions; (b) Creating global alliance of institutes for research, innovation and technology development; (c) Making India a favoured destination for higher learning; and (d) Technology-induced models of pedagogy; and (e) Funding options for higher education.
Among the dignitaries present at the concluding session of the Visitor’s Conference were Mr Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister of State for Human Resource Development and senior officers of Rashtrapati Bhavan and Government of India.
