BIT, Mesra: Teacher crisis

Ranchi, Nov. 18: Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, one of the state’s prestigious deemed universities, is faced with a sudden crisis: It is losing good teachers as they are apparently unwilling to move to smaller towns where new extension centres have been set up.

In the last six months, the technical institute of repute has lost as man as 20 teachers most of whom were highly qualified and experienced mentors admired by students.

Among the more popular teachers who have left were D. Pal of the electronics department, A.N. Sinha of mechanical and A.K. Shrivastava of physics. Besides, a few other seniors have either opted for long leave or were on lien for a year or two.

There are others who haven’t yet resigned formally, but have informed the BIT management about their decision to leave soon.

“Teachers are leaving the engineering college for better opportunities in places like Chennai, Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and several offshore destinations,” said a top official of the deemed university.

Apparently, teachers have been unhappy at being transferred to the new extension centres that BIT, Mesra has begun in Dumka, Deoghar and Patna. These places lacked infrastructure and, they felt, their research work suffered if they stayed away for too long from the main centre.

BIT also has extension centres in Calcutta, Allahabad, Jaipur and Noida along with three offshore centres in Kuwait, Bahrain and Muscat. It is also planning centres in Mauritius and Madagascar in the near future.

While Sinha has joined as director in a private technical college in Madhya Pradesh, Pal is learnt to be weighing options between a few off-shore destinations and a Bengal-based engineering college.

Another senior teacher, P.K. Das, who had taken a year’s leave while he was in the department of space engineering and rocketry, is now learnt to have joined a Chennai-based engineering college.

BIT, Mesra deputy registrar A.K. Jha admitted some teachers had left, but claimed it would not hamper academics at the institute.

“Some of the teachers were transferred to Patna or Deoghar or Dumka with added responsibilities but they opted to leave the institute. What can we do under such circumstances?” he said.

In a recent survey conducted by Outlook magazine, BIT, Mesra was ranked second among private engineering colleges in 2007. In many other surveys, too, the institute has always featured among the top 20 engineering colleges of the country — both government and private-run.