The Hindu : Front Page : ‘Do something about critical shortage of qualified teachers’

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‘Do something about critical shortage of qualified teachers’

P.V.V. Murthi

N. Ram highlights factors behind VIT University’s ‘astonishing success’

— Photo: D. Gopalakrishnan

N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, presenting the “Most Active Researcher Award” to D.P. Kothari, Vice-Chancellor of the VIT University, at the 23rd Annual Convocation of the University held in Vellore on Sunday. Chancellor G. Viswanathan (fourth from left) and Pro-Chancellors Sekar Viswanathan (right) and G.V. Selvam (third from left) are also in the picture.

VELLORE: Government and private educational institutions should provide attractive remuneration to teachers, both in the schools and in higher educational institutions, in order to attract the best academic talent to the noblest of professions. This was particularly important in technological education where an emerging shortage of qualified teachers was assuming critical proportions. Retention of outstanding teachers was also becoming a major problem. This was one of the main points made by N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, in his convocation address at the 23rd Annual Convocation of the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) University on Sunday.

Praising VIT for becoming “a world class system of higher technological learning” and its founder and Chancellor, G. Viswanathan, for his powerful vision and extraordinary achievement of institution-building, Mr. Ram identified several factors behind VIT’s “astonishing success” over a period of less than a quarter century. These factors were a sound, forward-looking, and flexible curriculum offered in six Schools of Excellence; an outstanding faculty headed by a distinguished Vice-Chancellor, a former Director of IIT(Delhi); an excellent teaching philosophy and methods; students drawn from all parts of the country through a highly competitive and transparent entrance exam in which the admission ratio was 1.5 per cent; advanced infrastructure; diverse academic links and academia-industry linkages; a close to 100 per cent placement record; a sustained commitment to excellence as well as providing access to all the constituents of society; the encouragement of innovation and creativity; and an international outlook. It was no surprise, Mr. Ram noted, that the latest India Today survey of engineering colleges assigned the top “factual rank” among private engineering institutions across India to VIT. Only three top-ranking IITs were placed ahead of it in factual rank, when all technological education institutions were considered.

Mr. Ram also observed that the international dimension of VIT’s development was reflected in the fact that nearly 950 of its 14,000 students were foreign students, with more than 450 of them coming from China.

He noted that the country had made major strides at the level of technological education over the past two decades. People were astonished to learn that there were about 1000 engineering colleges in the four southern States. Admittedly, not all of them were of quality and some of them even lacked the ways and means of developing into real centres of learning. Nevertheless, there was “a critical mass available for take-off to developed country status, so far as engineering education is concerned.”

Despite the supply increasing in a rapid way, there was an emerging shortage of qualified students. The shortage of qualified faculty in engineering colleges was assuming crisis proportions. “If you do not pay enough attention and respect to those who are going to lead the formation of a knowledge society, where are you heading? If you do not give your teachers decent rewards, you will naturally have a situation where an outgoing student, a novitiate, gets a starting salary that is a multiple of that of a distinguished professor, as you see in the IIMs. Where is justice in our higher education system?” he asked.

Mr. Ram said that notwithstanding inadequate material incentives, the teaching community deserved our salutations, because year after year quite a few teachers worked “like a Mother Teresa or like those who have committed themselves to a Gandhian way.” That commitment is “a precious national resource,” Mr. Ram remarked, adding: “But we cannot expect a majority of teachers to work on moral incentives. This is one issue of equity that needs to be not just reformed, but revolutionised in India.”

He stressed the need to strike a balance between two great objectives – the pursuit of quality, excellence, and world-class standards in the field of education at all levels, and the imperative need to make education accessible to all sections of society, women as well as men, at all levels in a progressive and modern sense. “It should be quality and accessibility, not quality versus accessibility. It should be excellence and affordability, not excellence versus affordability.”

Mr. Viswanathan, Chancellor of VIT University, who presided over the convocation, called attention to the reality that access to higher education among the relevant age group in India was less than 10 per cent. The Sam Pitroda Commission constituted by the Government of India had proposed that this percentage should be increased to 15 per cent by increasing the number of universities from the present 400 to 1,500 in the next 10 years.

The Chancellor called upon the Central and State governments to address the shortage of teachers on a “war footing” by appointing an adequate number of teachers in the educational institutions to cater to the increasing needs of the people. There was a shortage of eight lakh teachers for Standard I-VIII and 12 lakh teachers for Standard IX-Plus Two. Several teachers were appointed, on contract, with a salary ranging from Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 2,500. Even IIT-Delhi had only 448 teachers against a sanctioned strength of 556. Faculty vacancies in central universities ranged from 25 to 40 per cent, with many universities having poor infrastructure as well, Mr. Viswanathan observed.

Mr. Ram gave away gold medals to the candidates who took top honours in the various departments, and the ‘Most Active Researcher Awards’ to Vice Chancellor D.P. Kothari; T. Lazar Mathew, Dean, School of Biotechnology, Medical and Biomedical Engineering; R. Natarajan of the School of Mechanical and Building Sciences; M.A. Vijayalakshmi, Director, Centre for Bio-Separation Technology; R. Vijayaraghavan of the School of Science and Humanities; and eight others.

Sekar Viswanathan and G.V. Selvam, Pro-Chancellors, took part in the function. Dr. Kothari welcomed the gathering. A total of 3,232 candidates (2,226 men and 1,006 women) received their degrees in person and in absentia.

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