Hyderabad: University of Hyderabad was featured in April this year among top 10 institutions in India. Its science departments are well known for their research output. The achievements, however, are overshadowed by fear that the quality of teaching might go down in the near future. This is true for all Central universities facing a tough challenge from Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research when it comes to recruiting top quality faculty in sciences.
UoH pro vice-chancellor-1 Prof. Vipin Srivastava, said, “IITs and IISERs offer a much higher salary to their teachers than Central universities. They also offer much higher start-up grants to their new recruits than the Central universities to pursue research.”
He said the grants can go up to Rs 1 crore and beyond at IITs and IISERs. Due to fund limitation, the grants at Central universities are capped at Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh.
“Obviously, the cream of the talent is being attracted to IITs and IISERs,” Prof. Srivastava said. The initial gross salary for an assistant professor in IITs goes above Rs 70,000 and Rs 77,000 at the IISER. This goes up to Rs 93,200 after they get 2-3 years of experience. At central universities, the initial salary of an assistant professor is around Rs 60,000. The UoH has 89 vacant positions in its science departments.
While earlier there were few options for academics from top institutions, opportunities have increased with the rise in number of IITs. “The government has just increased the number of institutions and seats, focusing on quantity and not quality. A strict mechanism has to be brought in at all state and central universities to ensure good quality PhDs to fill vacancies.”
