IIM Calcutta

New Delhi, Feb. 18: India’s top institutes of higher education are arming themselves for battle with foreign universities and the industry to retain and attract the best teachers.

Over the past decade, the higher pay of corporate jobs and better prospects at foreign universities have been eating into the faculty base of the IITs, IIMs and top research facilities like the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).

Now, with a jump in the number of students staring them in the face, the institutes have come up with incentives to not just buck the trend, but try to reverse it. Over the next three years, the institutes will have to accommodate a 54 per cent rise in seats in line with the OBC reservation bill.

Personalised attention — which translates to a small number of students for every teacher — has been a crucial ingredient in the success of these institutes.

Already, the IIMs are unable to meet their target of seven students per teacher. IIM Calcutta, for instance, has about 75 faculty members for 800 students — over 10 students to a teacher.

“A good professor isn’t good enough for the IIMs. The person has to be top notch. Hence, we already have a shortage,” Anindya Sen, dean, IIM Calcutta, told The Telegraph.

The IITs have a target of nine students per teacher. At IIT Delhi, however, there are 420 faculty members and 4,800 students — about 12 students to a teacher.

As the number of students jumps, the ratio will only get worse.

“If our ideas to get good faculty members don’t work, the increase in number of students will effectively kill us as premier institutes,” said Anurag Sharma, dean, IIT Delhi.

ISI — the country’s top body for statistical research — is planning to allow its faculty members to earn extra by offering consultancy to corporate firms, an opportunity already available to IIM professors.

“One of our best professors, Rajiv Karandikar, has left ISI for a corporate job because he was denied the opportunity to provide consultancy services. His decision has acted as an eye-opener,” a senior administrator at the ISI headquarters in Calcutta said.

From increasing grants to paying for annual overseas trips for faculty and building schools for their children, the IIMs are laying out a variety of inducements. (See chart)

“There will be virtually no restraint on faculty travel within the country,” Sen said.

Tie-ups with B-schools abroad will open up opportunities for professors to work as visiting faculty.

If the IIMs are offering incentives, IIT Delhi is planning to “play on the emotions” of Indian scholars studying or working abroad. Faculty members travelling overseas have been told to seek out bright young Indians and encourage them to return.

“The opportunity to come back and teach the brightest of Indians at the IITs will be dangled before them,” Sharma said. Senior academics abroad will be reminded that “there is no place like home”.