IIT Kharagpur

New Delhi, Sept. 20: The best brains in the world are no longer eligible to teach as professors at the IITs and IIMs unless they have earlier taught at a select band of Indian institutes under a controversial new government rule.

The IITs and IIMs cannot hire international academic stars or Nobel laureates unless they have previously taught at the listed Indian institutes, under a new recruitment rule that starkly contrasts with the government’s “brain gain” plans.

The human resource development ministry has amended minimum qualifications required for professors at these institutions to include a mandatory four-year stint as associate professors at the select institutes, including IITs and IIMs, The Telegraph has learnt.

This modification means that for the first time a factor other than quality — of research, publications and student response — will play a critical role in determining eligibility for professor posts at the IITs and IIMs.

The rule change comes at a time the IITs and the IIMs are hoping to make use of the recession to lure Indian and foreign nationals teaching abroad, or working in industry, to fill their faculty vacancies.

The rule change also applies to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) and the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) in Mumbai.

“This change in the minimum qualification for professors kills all possibility of the IITs or the IIMs hiring experts, even Nobel laureates, from outside our own institutes. It violates the flexible hiring policy we have always enjoyed,” said Kanchan Chowdhury, cryogenics professor at IIT Kharagpur. Chowdhury is the head of the IIT Kharagpur faculty association.

HRD ministry sources confirmed the move and argued it was aimed at preventing poaching of professors — by the IITs and IIMs — from institutions like the National Institutes of Technology where teachers were paid less.

At present, the IITs, IIMs, IISc, IISERs and NITIE enjoy what is known as a flexible cadre system that allows them to promote faculty based on their performance, irrespective of their age.

A brilliant teacher and researcher could become a professor by his early 30s without having to wait for a certain number of years.

The hiring policy at these institutes allowed complete lateral entry — so an Indian professor at Harvard or MIT wishing to return to India could directly join these institutes. The IISc in Bangalore has several such cases, as do the IITs and the IIMs.

But the new recruitment rules for professors — articulated in a revised pay notification for faculty at these institutions on September 16 — ends this flexibility.

The faculty at these institutes now need 10 years’ experience before they become eligible for professor posts — irrespective of how bright they may be.

Four of these 10 years must be spent as associate professors at the IITs, IIMs, IISERs, NITIE or IISc, for these institutes to hire the faculty member as a professor.

On average, say IIT and IIM insiders, a faculty member takes six years to move from assistant professor to associate professor and another four years to muster credentials to become a professor.

The new rule effectively means that faculty wishing to teach as professors at the IITs or IIMs must also have spent their years as associate professors at one of these select institutions.

Pay protest

The change in recruitment rules coincides with a protracted battle over pay between the faculty and the government which controversially snipped proposed salaries.

A revised notification increased salaries of assistant professors but was silent on most other demands made by IIT and IIM faculty.

Faculty across all the IITs and most of the IIMs have already rejected the revised notification. IIM Ahmedabad, too, rejected it today.

The revised notification has led to the IITs and the IIMs drafting a joint rejoinder to the HRD ministry along with a fresh charter of demands. Faculty representatives from all IITs are meeting at IIT Kharagpur tomorrow.