Saturday, May 27 2006 11:03 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: While serious efforts are underway to implement the quota regime in Central Universities, a Parliamentary Committee has said that there is a serious shortage of faculty at the current level of demands.

As per the information available, in the 16 Central universities, there were 1,988 vacancies as on March last year, with the Banaras Hindu University and Delhi University having as many as 687 and 396 vacancies respectively, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD said in its report.

"Situation is also far from satisfactory in JNU, Visva Bharti and Mizoram University", it said noting that out of total vacant 1,988 posts, 1,056 posts belonged to lecturer category.

Expressing surprise over such a large number of posts of lecturers lying vacant, which was the entry point to a University, the Committee apprehended that situation might be worse in State Universities.

In order to attract and retain the qualified and highly motivated teachers, the Committee felt that there was a need to supplement their salaries with an attractive package of perquisites and support for academic activities coupled with appropriate recognition with outstanding achievement.

"Our higher education system is faced with many challenges today. The pressure on higher education system is going to further increase due to large number of additional students expected to join the higher education institutions in coming years, particularly due to upward pull generated by popular interventions like Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Mid-Day Meal Scheme", it said.

Expressing dismay over the 'tremendous imbalance' in access to higher education in urban and rural areas, the Committee said higher education in the country was largely a pro-rich and urban phenomenon.

Turning to SCs/STs in the higher education, the Committee noted the UGC had introduced the scheme of establishment of SC/ST cells in the universities in 1983 with a view to provide information regarding facilities available for them in universities and colleges.

But these attempts have not helped much, it said adding the enrolment of SCs in higher education has ranged between 8.6 per cent in 1990-91 to 11.3 per cent in 2002-03. Enrolment of ST students in higher education was between 2.1 per cent to 3.6 per cent in 1990-91 and 2003-04 respectively.

It recommended that special programmes for encouraging students from backward and minority communities also needed to be prepared urgently as their participation in higher education was 'abysmally low', as compared to their percentage in total population.

On women's participation in higher education, the Committee said their participation in the areas with great demand such as management, engineering, technology and medicine was very low in the country.

"Can a nation progress in real terms and catch up with others in this fiercely competitive world with their women- folk remaining virtually outside the higher education system", it asked.

"The Committee recommended that the participation of women in professional courses, which is abysmally low at present, needed to be improved manifold without further delay. More and more women as engineers, professors, lawyers, doctors, architects and entrepreneurs could mould the face of the country to a great extent," it said.

Emphasising on vocational education, it felt that industry-institution linkages may be encouraged as this would take care of many problems simultaneously promote relevance in the curriculum, enhance the employability of students, provide training facilities and mobilising some resources.

On the importance of management in higher education, the Committee recommended to ensure that academic decision in the institutions of higher learning was taken on merit and the government control must be reduced.

On the role of private universities, the Committee desired that the government should bring a comprehensive legislation for providing effective machinery to ensure that only genuine and quality private providers of higher education services remained in the field.