Staff crunch plagues IIMC

Moderator's Note: Betraying total ignorance about the history of IIMC and itsestablishment as a model centre of Mass Communication education for Non-Alignedcountries, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry official has admitted thatIIMC has adopted some "American model" that permits exploitation of contractteachers. She says, IIMC does not need faculty with PhD qualifications.She should enlighten the media and the IIMC students about some of theJournalism & Mass Communication Schools in the United States of America whichhas inspired her where PhD faculty is deemed a liability. or is she referring tosome Latin American model?.If IIMC is going to have university status in some remote future, it is bound tohave UGC norms for recruitment in keeping with the "Vision" of Information &Broadcasting Ministry officials like Kacker.The issue is what are the current norms that are being followed if any.Is she implying that in her "American Model" there is no space for Ph.D.program. Isn't PhD designed to provide a strong foundation for a career inteaching and research?. Is she aware that the Ph.D. programs are inherently andrigorously interdisciplinary?Isn't a research oriented approach required in the face of manifest shallownessin the current state of affairs?Is normlessness, chaos and a state of decay an "American model"?Moderator
Staff crunch plagues IIMC: The Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) is facing a majorstaff crunch and has been functioning without a director for nearly three yearsnow।In an extremely stretched stop-gap arrangement, the Information andBroadcasting Ministry has got one of its Joint Secretaries to holdadditional charge as IIMC Director and the institute has hired a teamof mostly ex-students as Academic Assistants and Coordinators to helpshare the burden of an understaffed and overworked faculty.Under the I&B Ministry, the institute has managed to fill 10 of the 24faculty positions with a core staff of just five professors. While theministry has only recently kick-started the process of recruiting anew director, it seems to be in no hurry to fill up vacant facultyslots। IIMC is conducting interviews for only two or three positionsand it is learnt that the response to the interview calls scheduledfor this week has not been good। The IIMC Director's post has earlierbeen held by the likes of Media Advisor to Indira Gandhi ShardaPrasad, former Chairman of Editor's Guild M V Desai, UNESCOcommunication expert Lakshman Rao and others.Joint Secretary in the I&B Ministry Stuti Kacker—who is also holdingcharge as Director IIMC—said the process to fill vacant positions ison but the ministry wants a "lean" faculty on the lines of theAmerican model."A search cum selection committee is already on the job looking for aDirector and we are in the process of filling up other positions aswell. We are looking at the US model which has a lean core staff and agood back-up of visiting/guest faculty," said Kacker.IIMC with a list of some 150 on its guest faculty list hardly managesto get 15-20 of them regularly for its Delhi centre. The DhenkanalIIMC centre in Orissa has just one Assistant Professor in charge andis bereft even of the privilege of a regular guest faculty."The autonomy of IIMC has eroded over the years. As many as sixfaculty members put in their papers last year because they were oncontract and were not being regularized. Frustrated, they took uphigher and better paying positions elsewhere. The ministry alsoinsists that UGC norms be followed for recruitment but we don't feelthe need for a PhD for faculty members. The lean staff now left holdsregular classes besides 35-40 short-term courses and practicallylittle or no leave. Naturally, teaching quality is also affected insuch a situation," said a faculty member on condition of anonymity.meanwhile, the Research department, Content Creation Project andIndian Information Service department are as good as defunct while thepost of Professor, Hindi Journalism, has been discontinued.Students in the latest batch, just a month into the session, arealready worried."I have enrolled for Hindi journalism and it seems no one is veryinterested in the course. We just have a single faculty member. Let'shope things will get better in the coming months," said a student.IIMC, meanwhile, nurses ambitious plans for the 11th Five year planenvisaging a university status offering undergraduate courses,restructured courses and a faculty of 64.

Anubhuti Vishnoi

September 07, 2007
Indian Express

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