Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers' Cadre) Bill

Why in news?

The Lok Sabha has passed the Central Educational Institutions (Reservations in Teachers’ Cadre) Bill-2019, replacing an earlier ordinance.

Why was an ordinance passed?

In 2018, the UGC announced that an individual department (instead of the institution) will be considered as the base unit to calculate the number of teaching posts to be reserved.
This was based on an Allahabad High Court order from 2017.
This led to a move from the 200-point roster system to a 13-point roster.
[The 200-point roster system considers the university as the unit rather than the 13-point roster system which considers department as the unit.]
The Supreme Court rejected the review petition by the government on the UGC directive.
So the government passed an Ordinance.
According to the ordinance, the system will revert to a 200-point roster.
This was also endorsed by student and teacher organisations across the country.

What is the objective of the Bill?

This Bill is to ensure reservations in teaching positions in central institutions for persons belonging to –
1. 1. Scheduled Castes
  2. Scheduled Tribes
  3. socially and educationally backward classes
  4. economically weaker sections

According to the HRD Ministry, there are more than 7,000 teaching jobs lying vacant in central educational institutions.
This Bill is aimed at filling those vacancies.
It also serves the purpose of fulfilling the demands of people from the above sections, for their rights as mentioned in the Constitution.

What are the key provisions?

Coverage and exceptions - The Bill will apply to ‘central educational institutions’ which include -
1. 1. universities set up by Acts of Parliament
  2. institutions deemed to be a university
  3. institutions of national importance
  4. institutions receiving aid from the central government

However, it excludes certain institutions of excellence, research institutions, and institutions of national and strategic importance.
E.g. Homi Bhabha National Institute, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, etc.
It also excludes minority education institutions.

Reservation of posts - The Bill provides for reservation of posts in direct recruitment of teachers (out of the sanctioned strength).

[Direct recruitment takes place by inviting applications from those eligible to teach in a Central institution, as against public advertisement.]

For the purpose of such reservation, a central educational institution will be regarded as one unit.
So, allocation of teaching posts for reserved categories would be done on the basis of all positions of the same level (such as assistant professor) across departments.
[Under previous guidelines, each department was regarded as an individual unit for the purpose of reservation.]

What is the rationale?

The High Court noted that institution-wise reservation would result in some departments having only reservation beneficiaries and others only those from the open category.
While this is agreeable, having department as the unit too would mean that smaller faculties do not have any reservation.
In this, it needs 14 posts to accommodate SC and ST candidates, as their turn would come only at the seventh and 14th vacancy.
There may be no vacancies in many departments for many years, with none from the reserved categories for decades.
So, the narrower basis (department-wise) would mean fewer aspirants from OBC and SC/ST sections being recruited as assistant professors.
Instead, taking the institution as the unit would give more opportunities for these sections.
In other words, in a wider pool of posts, the quotas of 27% for OBC, 15% for SC and 7.5% for ST could be effectively applied.

How will it benefit?

According to the UGC’s annual report for 2017-18, nearly two-thirds of assistant professors in Central universities are from the general category.
Their representation would go up further, as the present Bill also applies the 10% quota for the economically weak among the general category.
Given this, applying the court’s department-wise roster norm would have deepened the sense of deprivation of the backward classes and SC/ST communities.
In this light, the Bill provides a welcome relief for aspirants from the disadvantaged sections of society.
Restoring the earlier system would serve a vital social purpose and ensure social justice in teachers’ reservation.

Source: PRS India, The Hindu

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