Updated: December 17, 2020 8:18:00 am
The report provoked a strong reaction from the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle at IIT Bombay. (Archive)
An eight-member committee appointed by the government to suggest measures for the effective implementation of the reservation on student admissions and faculty recruitment at IITs has recommended that the 23 engineering schools should be exempt from reservations under the Act. 2019 CEI, and instead of specific quotas, diversity issues should be addressed through outreach campaigns and specific hiring of teachers.
The committee’s five-page report submitted to the HRD Ministry, now renamed the Education Ministry, on June 17 was made available on Wednesday under the Right to Information Act through a request filed in Uttar Pradesh.
The committee was chaired by the director of IIT Delhi, V Ramgopal Rao, and included the director of IIT Kanpur, Abhay Karandikar, representatives of secretaries from the departments of Social Justice and Empowerment, Tribal Affairs, Department of Personnel and Training, People with IIT Bombay and IIT Disabilities and Registrars. Madras like its other members.
Among two sets of recommendations made by the committee, one indicated that IITs should be added to the list of “Institutions of Excellence” mentioned in the 2019 Central Educational Institutions (Reserve on Teachers) Act Program. Section 4 of the Law exempts “institutions of excellence, research institutions, institutions of national and strategic importance” mentioned in the List and minority institutions from providing reserve.
Currently, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, National Brain Research Center, North-Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Science, Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research, Physical Research Laboratory, Space Physics Laboratory, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing and Homi Bhabha The National Institute and its 10 constituent units are covered by Section 4 of the law.
The report states: “Having been established and recognized as institutions of national importance by virtue of an Act of Parliament, IITs should be included in the Program of… CEI Law, 2019 for the exemption of reservations. This should be reconsidered immediately for the inclusion of IITs in the Schedule taking into account the nature of these institutions, their functions and their activities. The matter of reservations in these institutions may be in the hands of their respective Boards of Governors to deal with them in accordance with the resolutions of the Board, the statutes and the statutes “.
The report drew a strong backlash from IIT Bombay’s Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), which said in a statement Wednesday: “Rather than highlighting errors in the existing selection process and recommending ways to correct them, the committee leads his ignorance of caste and blames candidates from reserved categories for not being “sufficiently qualified.” There is sufficient data to suggest that the lack of qualified candidates from the reserved categories was never a reason for their lack of admission to doctoral programs at IITs. It is the cutoff mark used to deny entry to eligible SC / ST / OBC students on campus as IIT for years. “
An APPSC member told The Indian Express: “The committee report was not made public before. We got it just today after an RTI application was filed at UP. The committee has done the exact opposite of what it was appointed to do. It was supposed to address the reservation policy violations that we have pointed out over and over again with data. Instead, you want to remove the reserve for hiring teachers. This is like a person accused of breaking a law asking for the law to be removed. “
The committee, which met on May 1 and 12 via videoconference, also wrote in its report: “The enrollment of reserved category students in the PhD program is low and needs to be addressed … This is severely limiting the number of reserved category candidates available to be hired as professors in the IIT system ”.
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