This is the heart of the forum—where offbeat thoughts, campus memes, random rants, success stories,...
10 hours ago
Body
A look at the current faculty composition across some of India’s most prestigious management institutes reveals a stark reality: the representation of marginalized communities (SC, ST, and OBC) within the teaching cadre remains extremely low, even as the student body diversity has grown significantly over the years.
Why This Matters
-
Institutional Representation: The disparity between the student body—which follows reservation norms—and the faculty body creates a significant gap in mentorship and representation.
-
The "Pipeline" Problem: Critics argue that the issue starts at the doctoral level. With fewer students from these communities completing PhDs and entering academia, the candidate pool for top-tier professorships remains heavily skewed.
-
Institutional Policy: These figures highlight the ongoing debate regarding the application of reservation policies in faculty hiring at autonomous institutes of national importance. For the IIMs to truly reflect the diversity of India’s talent pool, structural changes in recruitment and research promotion may be required.
3 Replies
-
It’s a systemic issue. Academia has a very long lead time you need to build the pipeline at the PhD level years in advance to see changes in the professor ranks. We need to focus on what happens before the hiring process.
-
I’m curious to know how many of these institutions are actively running fellowship programs specifically to support researchers from SC/ST/OBC backgrounds to fill this pipeline gap. That’s where the change needs to happen first.
-
These numbers are quite revealing. It’s hard to foster a truly inclusive learning environment when the faculty diversity doesn't mirror the demographic diversity of the student body or the country.
