Editor's Pick: Making IIMs more socially responsive

(The Editor's Pick is a new newsletter from The Hindu that provides a snapshot of the most important stories from today's edition of our newspaper, along with a note from our top editors on why we chose to give prominence to these stories.)

The levels of hiring of SC/ST and OBC faculty in the older IIMs fall much short of legally mandated quotas, while the more recently established IIMs fare much better. Data obtained via RTI applications show that faculty members from these categories make up only 10% of the total faculty at the older IIMs.

This report comes a day after Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank told Lok Sabha that more than 60% of SC and OBC reserved positions lie vacant in IIMs, while almost 80% of positions reserved for STs have not been filled. He had also stated that in central higher education institutions overall, more than 50% of faculty positions reserved for OBCs and over 40% reserved for SC/STs lie vacant.

According to the Minister, the responsibility for filling up these posts lies with these autonomous central institutions themselves. Apparently, the IITs and IIMs have not been keen on filling up the reserved vacancies despite a UGC warning. The main reason cited by these institutions for not filling the vacancies is the lack of qualified candidates. However, the RTI queries also reveal a large number of SC/ST/OBC applicants for the jobs — none of whom was hired.

A panel constituted by the Ministry of Education recently suggested that IITs be exempted from faculty reservation norms. The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019 allows certain Institutes of Excellence to circumvent these norms and the argument is for the IITs to be included in this category. However, as today's editorial in The Hindu points out, this is not the best course for official policy as the reservation system "is widely seen as the shortest path to equality and equity." The editorial points to other more progressive suggestions by the panel, such as preparatory courses.

The need to make these prestigious institutions "more socially responsive, meeting the goal of addressing historical deprivation of communities based on caste" is what makes this story important.

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