Recruitment of faculty: AICTE issues fresh directives to technical institutes

Hyderabad: The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has asked all the engineering and technical institutions in the country to comply with its notification of April 2017 regarding the eligibility criteria for the appointment of lecturers in technical educational institutions.

An AICTE circular sent to the universities reminded that the council had earlier notified major/core branches of engineering and technology and their relevant/appropriate courses leading to a degree in engineering and technology for recruitment to teaching positions in technical institutions.

The new directive of the apex technical education regulator has come following several technical educational institutions rejecting to consider postgraduate degrees in the relevant and allied fields for the purpose of appointment of faculty positions.

Taking a serious view of the same, the council said earlier it was also specified that having an undergraduate and postgraduate degree in any of the major/core branches of engineering, "invariably from IITs, NITs, IISc Us and DUs, along with any combination of prevalent appropriate make a candidate eligible for consideration of teaching post," it said.

That apart, the council reminded that it had asked the institutions that the Board of Governance (BoG) of the concerned institution on the recommendation of the duly constituted selection committee and with "the approval of their respective State, UT, Central University, Department of Technical Education etc. to take appropriate decision on relevant qualifying degrees suitable for recruitment to the teaching positions especially keeping in view interdisciplinary nature of emerging technologies."

However, the appropriate branch of a degree in engineering and technology is not being considered by the technical institutions for recruitment to teaching positions.

In turn, this has left qualified persons lose their opportunities. Against this backdrop, the council has issued the circular to comply with its directives on the eligible degrees for the recruitment.

The council said the new directive was issued "to mitigate the hardship faced by the prospective candidates and also to ensure that the incumbent faculty are not denied the career advancement scheme benefits, recruitment increments etc," and asked the institutions to adhere to its earlier notification of 2017 in letter and spirit.

Besides, it also said the earlier list of appropriate nomenclature given in the AICTE Gazette notification is illustrative only and not conclusive.

For example, the council said that post-graduate degree courses in VLSI Design may be considered as a relevant appropriate nomenclature of PG degree for the recruitment of faculty in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Similarly, M Tech course in Remote Sensing ad Geographic Information System (GIS) should also be considered by recruitment agencies for both direct recruitments in the department of Civil Engineering and in the promotions under Career Advancement Scheme, it said.