Over 50 Per Cent IIT Professors Unable To Meet Teaching And Research Performance Expectations, Notes IIT Council

Over 50 per cent of the professors at various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are performing below par, which has resulted in negative impact on the research environment and brand image of the premier engineer institutions of the country, reports LiveMint.

According to the report, the IIT Council, the governing body of all of the IITs, in its meeting on 27 September had raised concern over a significant number of professors not doing justice to their credibility and talent.

“It has been observed that despite having very good credentials, large numbers of faculty do not put in enough effort on research and teaching. Over a period of time, this number has gone up to an extent (of) more than half," IITs said in a note that was discussed at the council meeting, as reported by LiveMint.

“As a result, there is pressure on the administration to lower the criterion for evaluation. This becomes more fatal if heads of the institutes (directors) and other administrators like heads (of departments) and deans come from this category (of non performers)," it added.

The discussions at the council led to the recent decision to introduce a tenure track system in faculty hiring, said an IIT professor. He added that a number of teachers at IITs have developed the attitude that it’s a “join and retire” job and therefore less effort in teaching and research will not threaten their jobs and growth.

“Now, the governing bodies of the IITs will closely track the research output of its faculties and their publication in good journals. Unless you as a professor do that you will be pinpointed. Poor research and citation is negatively impacting the brand value and ranking of IITs that too at a time when India aims to make IITs to become world-class universities," the professor was quoted in the report as saying.

The development is a cause of concern as IITs, which are among the premier research institutions of India, failed to secure a rank even in the top 300 institutions of the world in the latest Times Higher Education’s World University Ranking.

In the Ranking, IIT-Kanpur reportedly got a research score of 24.5 and citation score of 35.2 compared to China’s Peking University, which has a research score of 90 and citation score of 73.2.