Even as the Union HRD ministry is drawing up ambitious plans to increase the GER (gross enrolment ratio) in higher education from the current 13 percent to 30 percent by 2020, little attention is being paid to training and developing faculty required to attain this objective. And with the passage of time, faculty shortages in Indian academia are becoming endemic and are debilitating even vintage institutions of repute.A case in point is the Pune-based Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute (DC, estb.1821) which enjoys an excellent reputation for research in archaeology and Sanskrit, but is experiencing an acute faculty shortage. Currently, seven of DCs ten posts in the department of linguistics are vacant, and this has been the situation for several years. The explanation, according to the institutes director Vinayaka Bhatta, is that it is very difficult to find faculty to teach specialised subjects. The other two faculties of the college — Sanskrit and archaeology — also have vacancies with four out of 14 and eight out of 20 posts vacant. According to Bhatta, against DCs 53 sanctioned faculty only 38 are taking classes. The remaining posts are vacant for reasons varying from non-availability of experts to difficulty in finding eligible candidates for positions reserved for SCs and STs. Deccan College, which was initially established as the Hindu College in 1821, is reputed worldwide for its pioneering work in the fields of archaeology, linguistics, Sanskrit and lexicography. It offers Masters and doctorate programmes in archaeology, Sanskrit and linguistics apart from conducting deep research in these subjects. During the past 190 years, the college has produced several eminent scholars including orientologist R.G. Bhandarkar, freedom fighter Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, social reformer Gopal Ganesh Agarkar and philosopher Gurudev Ranade. Availability of funds is the least of the DC managements worries. Following a Bombay high court order of August 16, 1939, the Maharashtra state government is obliged to meet all salary, non-salary and development expenses of the college. Moreover, in April this year, this deemed universitys faculty was sanctioned the substantially larger pay packages awarded by the Sixth Pay Commission with retrosp-ective effect from January 1, 2006. A government resolution (GR) to this effect was issued on April 21 by R.S. Atak, additional secretary in the state governments department of higher and technical education. Given its esoteric subject speciali-sations, DC needs highly qualified teacher-researchers. For example, it has initiated a massive Sanskrit dictionary compilation project — one of the worlds biggest lexicography works. It started in 1948 and is expected to take another 40 years to complete. The project has already seen three generations of lexicographers at work in the countrys first-ever department of Sanskrit lexicography. The department also offers Masters and doctorate programmes in lexicography and allows students to acquire hands-on experience by working on the Sanskrit dictionary project. (Lexicology is the science of the study of words whereas lexicography is the writing of the word in some concrete form e.g a dictionary). Another ongoing project is an investigation into the…
