The decision to let IITs, and possibly IIMs in the near future, hire foreign faculty is welcome. This should be a merit-based process to help fill the gaps created by a national staff quality crunch as well as shortage of resources in the elite institutes that inhibit their ability to compete internationally in hiring the best brains. The $14,000 (under Rs 10 lakh a year) salary cap is on the lower side when it comes to assistant professor and associate professor pay scales in elite institutes, but they may have been defined by existing pay for national faculty so as not to be discriminatory.
At these salaries, India can, however, offer young and bright faculty members the opportunity to come home and serve. Also, there are already well-defined ways in which the lectures of acclaimed faculty members are shared among colleges through the Internet and, to enhance their usefulness, interactive sessions across IITs can be organised online. Amid the brain-drain and brain-gain arguments there is a also a debate raging over whether far too much is being made about hiring teachers from abroad rather than Indian ones on the grounds that university standards abroad are more stringent.
Considering the high number of engineers leaving to study abroad, hiring should be more oriented towards attracting non-resident Indians to take up the cause as much as foreigners. The exercise is not so much about the country’s elite institutions wishing to climb the world rankings as it is to look for a higher quality of young teachers to help lift standards. In being allowed to hire internationally, an important principle is being upheld and it is the task of the IITs to ensure the process works.
