Decide eligibility of faculty at State-level: AICTE to universities

Hyderabad: Bringing the curtains down over the ongoing tussle over the eligibility criteria in the recruitment of faculty members, the AICTE left the same to the State governments and the universities.

It may be mentioned here that several prospective teaching faculty have been asking the AICTE regarding eligibility and suitability criteria for the recruitments.

It has also received several complaints on the issue related to the JNTU-H and JNTU-Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh, seeking clarifications on the eligibility, suitability and promotions to employ as Assistant Professors, Associate Professors or Professors for different departments.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior professor from JNTU-Anantapur said, "There were postgraduates in computer science or information technology who have completed their PhD in electronics and communications department in an interdisciplinary area." But, when they are denied opportunities when they turned up for the recruitment of assistant professors in the departments of CSE and IT, he added.

Clarifying on this, the AICTE said that it has received complaints from the aggrieved candidates about "the suitability of candidates for a particular department, if the PhD is carried out from the departments other than the employing department."

Against this backdrop, the AICTE said that it has already notified the major and core branch of engineering and technology earlier. Besides, clarifying their relevant and appropriate courses leading to a degree in engineering and IT, for recruitment to teaching positions. However, the AICTE has made it clear that its scope to include and update from time to time the nomenclatures offered by various IITs.

NITs, Universities, Deemed Universities as organisations, institutions are empowered to start courses with the approval of their respective Board of Governors, Senates, Managements, Academic bodies or from University Grants Commission, without the knowledge of AICTE.

For these reasons, the AICTE said that it is not practical or necessary to come up with an exhaustive nomenclature of various courses.

Against this backdrop, it said that the incumbent faculty recruited in the past based on their qualification acquired will continue to be eligible in the departments they were recruited to if found to be eligible as per the AICT'E norms prevailing at that time.

In all other cases, it asked the universities and their respective authorised bodies to notify the suitable and appropriate degrees eligible for the recruitment of the faculty.

Also, by taking into consideration the interdisciplinary nature of emerging technologies. It advised the aggrieved candidates to direct all their queries and get them resolved at the State or the university level and need not approach the AICTE.