RTI reveals shortage of civilian instructors at the National Defence Academy
13 Oct, 2013
An application was filed with the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadakwasla under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to get the details about the number and appointment of Civilian Academic Officers (CAOs) in the academy.
The reply to the application suggests that there is quite a shortage of civilian instructors in the premier institute. It states that there are 87 Civilian Academic Officers (CAOs) in the NDA against the stipulated strength of 117. The reply provides a break up of the civilian instructors saying that out of 87 CAOs, there are 52 assistant professors, 28 associate professors and seven professors. As per the UGC norms, there should be a ratio of 1:10 between the strength of teachers to cadets for science subjects, while for humanities, such ratio should be 1:30. It has been claimed that the lectures are being managed by employing Clock Hour Basis (CHB) instructors in most of the departments except history, political science and economics.
Even the stipulated CAO strength is not sufficient for the 1,800 cadets of the academy and the number of cadets has already increased to around 21,00 due to shortage of officers in the armed forces, thus deepening the crisis.