Parliament Raises Questions on IIT Faculty-Student Ratio, Centre Claims 3500 Posts Filled in Four Years
Mission Mode Drive Helped Fill Large Number of Vacancies
New Delhi, August 11, 2026
Over 3,500 faculty vacancies was filled across the Indian Institutes of Technology between September 2022 and May 2026 under the special mission mode recruitment drive. This information come in a recent Lok Sabha reply from the Ministry of Education. However the reply did not give the actual faculty-to-student ratio for each IIT or the full details of sanctioned, filled and vacant posts over the last five years, even though the MP had specifically asked for these numbers.
Earlier Vacancy Figures and Continuous Hiring Process
An earlier parliamentary answer in August 2022 had shown that 4,596 teaching positions was lying vacant across the 23 IITs at that time. The mission mode drive was started mainly to bring down this large backlog. The Ministry now say that creating and filling faculty posts is a continuous process. Vacancies keep coming up because of retirements, resignations and also because student numbers and new academic programmes keep increasing every year.
IITs keep putting out rolling advertisements throughout the year so that interested candidates can apply anytime. The Ministry added that despite the large number of appointments made in the last four years, the exact current ratio of teachers to students in individual IITs was not shared in the latest reply.
Concerns Remain Over Transparency
Many education experts and student groups feel that without clear data on faculty-student ratio it is difficult to judge how much the teaching quality has improved. The government maintain that the recruitment process is ongoing and more appointments will continue as and when required.
