Academic quality takes a beating at NIT-C

87% of staff on contract basis; no recruitment for past 7 years

April 28, 2017 09:51 pm | Updated 09:51 pm IST - Kozhikode

The National Institute of Technology, Calicut, has fallen to the 44th position in the ranking of the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

The National Institute of Technology, Calicut, has fallen to the 44th position in the ranking of the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Time was when the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, (NIT-C), was unquestionably the main choice of engineering aspirants in the State and outside. Now, year after year, the institute has not only been performing bad, rather worse, in the National Institutions Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

It was ranked 35th last year, but now has fallen to the 44th position, raising serious concerns over the downward trend. Many correlate the decline in quality of academics to the ad hocism of faculty at the institute.

More than 60% of the teaching staff, mostly assistant professors and associate professors, are appointed on contract basis for a semester. There are only 96 assistant professors out of the sanctioned strength of 276, 48 out of 138 associate professors and 46 out of the 69 professors.

The case of non-teaching staff in three categories is dismal. Only 141 persons are on the regular roll out of the sanctioned strength of 544. Overall, the ratio of permanent employees to contract job is 23:87. No recruitment has been done at the NIT-C for the past seven years, sources said.

Efforts to recruit assistant professors and associate professors failed to take off as the tenure of the selection panel constituted by the MHRD expired last year. A new panel has to be constituted apart from the appointment of a Visitors Nominee by the President.

The quality of education has taken a beating since the faculty positions in all departments, including civil, mechanical, and electrical and computer science, remain unfilled. Besides, five to six persons retire every year. This reflected in the ranking, they said.

The score of the NIT-C of the parameters covered by the NIRF such as teaching, learning and resources was 53.28; research productivity, impact and intellectual property rights and patents 21.15; outreach and inclusivity 73.98; graduation outcome 60.77 and perception 26.25. A saving grace is that it still figures on the list of three colleges among the 100 best engineering colleges in the country. The others being the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology ( 28th) and the College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram (93rd).

Students of the NIT-C hide behind the truth of the past glory. The only means to find a way to reverse its current track is the immediate recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff at the earliest, a senior professor said.

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