IIT Council to Meet as Uncertainty Looms Over 'INSPIRE' Faculty Programme

New Delhi: The Human Resource Development Ministry has decided to step in to resolve the uncertainty over the fate of the ambitious INSPIRE faculty (IF) programme which was implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in 2011 to stop the ‘brain drain’ from India.

The scheme aimed to recruit awardees to host institutions. The fellows, however, say that the ambitious programme has fallen short of expectations.

In April 2018, News 18 had flagged the issue of “uncertainty lying ahead of IF fellows.”

The matter will now be discussed in the IIT Council meeting on August 21, 2018.

After seeing that the awardees of the IF programme have not been recruited by the ‘host institutions’ that come under the HRD ministry, DST wrote to the institutes saying ‘they have serious concerns'.

Some fellows are yet to secure regular positions for continuation of their research activities.

The DST had written to a host of institutes — NITs, IITs, IISERs, NISER — to absorb the INSPIRE Faculty in case of vacancies. It also conveyed to the INSPIRE Faculty fellows that they have “no control over the host institutes,” as they fall under HRD.

But now the IF issue is on the agenda of the IIT Council meet. Higher education secretary R Subrahmanyam said, “A policy which was started with an idea of providing teaching opportunities to the fellows, has not been able to achieve what it intended to. We need to discuss and see how the issue can be resolved.”

He added “The IIT Council is the right forum to bring the issue of INSPIRE Faculty fellows with all the stakeholders and the minister present.”

The IIT council is the governing body responsible for all of the Indian Institutes of Technology.

In light of the growing vacancy problems in higher education institutes, the issue of INSPIRE Fellows assumes significance.

Recently, HRD ministry shared the numbers with PTI, “There are 5,606 vacant posts of faculty members in central university country while the number of such vacancies in the prestigious IITs is 2,806. In National Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science and Technology, there are 1870 vacant positions, 88 in Indian Institutes of Science (IISc), Bengaluru and 100 IISERs.”