SCs and STs account for less than 5% of professors

NEW DELHI: Amid raging debate over the fallout of the Supreme Court judgment on the share of the backward classes in teaching positions in higher education, the government has provided official figures which show abysmal representation of SCs, STs and OBCs in faculties in central universities across the country.

The general categories (upper castes) comprise nearly 95% in posts of “professors” as against 3.54% SCs and 0.86% STs.There are no OBCs in the top teaching positions. The general categories represent 93% of posts of “associate professors” in stark contrast to 5% SCs and 1% STs, with no OBCs at all.
In the juniormost teaching position of “assistant professor”, general categories have a share of 66% as against 12% of SCs and 6% of STs. OBCs here count for nearly 15%. Across three categories, general communities have a share of 75%, SCs 10%, STs 4% and OBCs 10%.
Union ministry of HRD on February 6 provided to the Parliament’s “committee on welfare of OBCs” the caste-wise break up of faculties in higher education institutions. The panel is examining the implementation of reservation policy and if “creamy layer” for OBCs needs to be rationalised. Their representation marks a massive shortfall in comparison to the reservation available to SCs (15%), STs (7.5%) and OBCs (27%). Interestingly, the government recently carved out 10% reservation for the poor among the general communities (upper castes).
Blaming the “system of recruitment and implementation of quota policy” for the low share of backward classes in the faculties, Congress MP B K Hariprasad, who is a member of the OBC panel, said, “Even if SCs, STs and OBCs pass the examinations, there are many pretexts on which they are denied positions. That is the reason behind the deficit in their recruitment and population figures.”