More diversity in faculty hires new IIMs

Although some new Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) have made some progress in the last few years in hiring faculty from scheduled castes and tribes, and other backward classes, these communities make up less than 10% of the older, more prestigious faculties . IIMs as per data received through RTI requests by PhD graduates from IIM-Bengaluru.

Members of the Global Alumni Network, a group of about 300 alumni of IITs and IIMs fighting for social justice at these elite institutions, welcomed limited progress, but asked why the old IIMs were allowed to break the “profanity” law Is being given

Also read: More than 60% OBC, SC IIM vacant

At the top of the prestige list, IIM-Kolkata has no SC or ST faculty, but has two OBC faculty members, which is less than 77% to 3% of its total strength. IIM-Bangalore has 6% of it. 103 faculty from reserved categories: 3 SC, 1 ST and 2 OBC community members. IIM Ahmedabad stated that it “does not maintain category information for faculty” and failed to provide any information to RTI filed by Siddharth Joshi.

Among other first generation IIMs, Lucknow has less than 5% faculty from reserved categories, while Kozhikode has less than 10%. Indore echoed IIMA-A, and said no information was available. All data is for December 2020.

“The key is to implement reservations in doctoral programs, so that the pool of different candidates available to faculty increases. But most of them are PhD graduates [from reserved categories] Dr. Joshi said that the old IIMs are still resistant, because now posts are being filled in the new IIMs.

Some second-generation IIMs have performed better. The institute in Shillong has more than 30% faculty from reserved categories, while Raipur has 25% and Jammu has more than 22%. At the other extreme is IIM Nagpur, which does not have a single faculty member of any reserved class.

To understand the faculty recruitment process, Drs. Joshi’s RTI questions also asked about the number of candidates who applied from each category, were interviewed, offered jobs, and accepted employment in each IIM between January 2019 to December 2020.

The response revealed that in some cases, hundreds of applicants were shortlisted, but none made it through the recruitment process.

For example, in IIM Lucknow, there were 888 applicants for faculty positions over a period of two years, including 197 from reserved categories. Only seven were selected for interviews, and none were offered jobs. Out of 691 general category applicants, 59 were shortlisted and 12 were offered jobs.

“IIM cannot continue to be used on the pretext of non-availability of qualified candidates. Anil Wagade, an IIM Kolkata alumnus, said he needs to scout for intentionality, and for applicants, as practiced in affirmative action programs by the world’s top Western universities. “They also need to ensure that prejudice is not allowed to play outside through the shortlisting and interview process.”

Since 2019, when Parliament passed the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in the Cadre of Teachers) Act, IIM exempted from the law’s requirements to reserve faculty posts for SC, ST, OBC and economically weaker sections Is actively lobbying the Ministry of Education (EWS). He had earlier cited a 50-year-old memorandum from the central government that exempted scientific and technical posts from reservation.

In November that year, the Ministry of Education told the Lok Sabha that 20 IIMs had only 11 faculty from SC / ST categories. On Monday, it told the Lok Sabha that IIM has reserved 21 posts reserved for SC and 5 posts for ST, along with 36 reserved for Other Backward Classes, which is still well below the legally mandatory quota. .

“There has been some incremental progress, but IIMs are still not really implementing the law. The problem is that most are not taking any deliberate steps to change the situation, just paying lip service. The older IIMs are working with Impunity.