IIT Roorkee Not To Hire Its PhD Students As Faculty Members

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IIT Roorkee Not To Hire Its PhD Students As Faculty Members
New Delhi: Now, the PhD students from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee will not be able to work in the institute as faculty members! According to a IIT Roorkee official, the institute will not employ their students as teachers on completion of the course despite the academic record. Instead, the official told IIT Roorkee prefers to appoint best faculty from across the country and world.

The official also believes that hiring someone from IIT Roorkee for a faculty post in the same institute like marrying from one's own family.

 "We are not open to hiring our own PhD students as faculty members and would prefer to hire best faculty from across the country and the globe. Hiring your own students is like marrying in your own family," IIT Roorkee Director Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi told PTI.

He also that appointing someone from the same institute is a regressive practice as a person who has studied here only will not get fresh ideas as their umbilical cord will never be broken. 

"He or she will have seniors and teachers to support and guide so the person will never develop an individuality despite his academic and research credentials," he added.

But IIT Roorkee, the premier institute, however, is welcoming its BTech students to do PhD on completion of their graduation in engineering. IIT Roorkee has also got plans to hire more faculty from abroad as the government relaxed norms for appointing foreign faculty in Indian Institutes of Technology.

Mr. Chaturvedi also noted that the IITs right now have just a handful of foreign faculty because of the tough norms by governments in the appointment of teachers from abroad, however, he hoped since the norms are getting relaxed, the pioneer institutes will have more faculty from outside the country.

According to the current norms, foreign faculty in IITs can work in India as contractual employees for a period of five years with contract extensions, though, they are not offered permanent teaching positions. Foreign teachers also get paid at par with their counterparts from India.

In another development last week, students at IIT-Roorkee have taken to crowdfunding to raise Rs. 50 lakh for building bio-toilets on the ghats of river Ganga and design drones to monitor water pollution as their contribution to "Clean Ganga" campaign. Named 'Aviral Ganga', the campaign by IIT-Roorkee students highlights degradation of the holy river and an alarming level of its exploitation despite the Centre's innumerable efforts to clean it.

(With Inputs from PTI)

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