A Failure Beyond Numbers
One in every three faculty posts lies vacant across India’s top technical institutes—IITs, NITs, and IIITs, is not just a statistic; it is an indictment of institutional apathy. More troubling than the headline 33% overall vacancy is the disclosure that over 50% of positions reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes remain unfilled, with no special recruitment drive initiated to address this glaring backlog, is not addressed in the article. This is not merely a “faculty crunch”, it is a systemic failure to uphold constitutional mandates and ensure representation in academic spaces. Under the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019, they are required to provide reservation for SC, ST and OBCs using a roster system.