Parliamentary Panel Hints At "Bias" Against SC, ST Faculty Candidates

Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates are deliberately declared "not suitable" for appointment as faculty members in educational institutions because of "biased" assessment by selection panels, a parliamentary panel has said.

The Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes submitted in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday its report on the "role of autonomous bodies/educational institution including central universities, engineering colleges, IIMs, IITs, medical institutes, Navodaya Vidyalayas and Kendriya Vidyalayas in socio-economic development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes."

The panel said it is not inclined to accept the "stereotype" reply of the government that a sufficient number of suitable candidates could not be found.

"This is in fact not a correct picture of assessment of the SC/ST candidates who are equally bright and deserving. But they are deliberately declared as 'not suitable' because of wrong biased assessment by the Selection Committee just to deprive SC/ST candidates of their legitimate rights to be...faculty members," according to the report.

The panel headed by Lok Sabha MP Kirit Premjibhai Solanki noted that the selection for faculty posts at the AIIMS, New Delhi is made by the Standing Selection Committee consisting of seven members, including chairman.

"The committee is concerned to note that none of the members of this committee belongs to SC/ST community...members from SC/ST community should be mandatorily included in the selection committee in order to provide representation and to participate in policies being framed to enhance the prospects of SC/ST employees in AIIMS," it said.

The panel also flagged that reservation is not applied in super speciality courses.

"As a result thereof, members belonging to SC/ST community are not able to enter the super-specialty courses, resulting in unprecedented and unwarranted deprivation of these candidates and monopoly of the unreserved faculty members in the super-specialty fields.

"Reservation policy must be enforced in all super-specialty fields at student as well as faculty level strictly to ensure presence of SC and ST faculty members there also. For the purpose, the committee are of the firm view that effective mechanism be set up to send SC and ST doctors and students to undergo specialised training abroad so that their adequate representation may be seen visibly in all super-speciality fields," the report said.

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