Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that educated youth is facing severe joblessness as scores of posts are vacant in top institutions like IITs and IIMs.
This comes after Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank revealed that 60% of the faculty posts reserved for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Scheduled Caste (SC) and more than 80% of faculty posts reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) remain vacant in the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).
Nishank disclosed this data in a written response to a Lok Sabha question asked by three Congress MPs. As per the data, more than 50% of faculty positions for OBCs remain deserted in all central higher education institutions. The percentage is more than 40 for the posts reserved for SCs and STs.
Commenting on a report, Rahul said, "Educated youth is facing severe joblessness. It seems GOI is penalising them, esp. OBC-SC-ST candidates, for having real degrees!"
According to the report by The Hindu, “Out of 709 assistant professor positions reserved for STs at the 42 universities, more than 500 have been filled. However, when it comes to professors, only nine positions have been filled out of the 137 reserved for ST candidates. This means 93% of these posts remain unfilled. Less than 1% of the 1,062 professors in central universities are from ST communities."
The report further said that 64% of the 2,206 assistant professor positions reserved for OBCs have been filled in the Central Universities. However, less than 5% of the 378 professor positions reserved for OBCs have been filled.
The written response claims that after the implementation of ‘The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019’, the OBC reservation has been implemented at all levels. However, the report says, "the onus of filling up the teaching posts lies on Central Universities which are autonomous bodies created under Acts of Parliament."
In June 2019, the University Grants Commission (UGC), which continuously monitor vacancies, wrote to all Universities and gave them a six month deadline to fill up all vacancies. A warning was also issued that if its directions were violated, grants would be denied. According to the data presented in the Lok Sabha on Monday, there are now 6,074 vacant positions at the 42 universities, of which 75% are in reserved categories.
Taking note of the situation, opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to criticise the ruling party. Gandhi has been constantly speaking about jobs for the unemployed on Twitter using the hashtag- #ModiRozgaarDo. Today he wrote, "Educated youth is facing severe joblessness. It seems GOI is penalising them, esp. OBC-SC-ST candidates, for having real degrees!"
