New Delhi, Sept. 3: The premiere Indian Institutes of Technology are all facing a massive shortage of teachers with over one third positions lying vacant, belying tall claims about rising standards of higher education in the country.

IIT-Kharagpur leads the pack with 299 vacancies followed by IIT-Bombay with 222, IIT-Roorkee with 194, IIT-Madras with 138 and IIT-Delhi with 78. Others are not far behind either.

There are 69 vacancies in IIT-Kanpur, 65 in IIT-Guwahati and 48 in IIT-Ropad. In fact, the situation is the same in all the 15 IITs in the country.

While the IITs have a poor teacher student ratio of 1: 15, Harvard University boasts 1:7, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Hong Kong and National University of Singapore have a ratio of 1: 5, while the University of Michigan has 1:6. IITs can maintain a teacher-student ratio of 1:10 but not with 34.2 per cent of teacher posts lying vacant.

If the higher education market is opened up for international educational institutes, IITs are bound to suffer further. “Foreign players will recruit teachers from these IITs,” sources said.

To prevent this expected exodus, the HRD ministry has already proposed more sops for IIT faculty members including a performance-related incentive scheme. But there is no move to fill existing vacancies.