BENGALURU: One of the premier institutions in the country — the 105-year-old University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) set up by Bharat Ratna Sir M Visvesvaraya — is facing a severe shortage of permanent teaching staff. The college has close to 4,000 students, including 2,800 BE and 700 PhD students, but has only 80 permanent teachers. This is against the sanctioned strength of 139 teachers. No permanent teacher has been recruited since 2007, while the college is making do with guest faculty all these years. Also, the institution has only 35 non-teaching staff, while the sanctioned posts are 203. “Again, the college is managing with contractual staff,” said an employee of the college, requesting anonymity.
Sources from the Higher Education Department said UVCE Principal HN Ramesh recently wrote to the Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, about the staff crunch. The letter, a copy of which is available with The New Sunday Express, states that the recruitment of permanent teaching staff has not been done since 2007 and non-teaching staff since 1995. “There are no qualified non-teaching staff in laboratories,” the letter reads.
In December 2021, University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering Bill 2021 was passed to upgrade it intoan autonomous institution on par with Indian Institutes of Technology. But the state government is yet to appoint a director, the board of governors and members. This will help in constituting a senate and executive council, and also in the appointment of other officers.
There have been issues with the infrastructure too, as students of the mechanical engineering department have to use lab facilities in other colleges as their department building collapsed in 2017. The estimate for the reconstruction was put at Rs 85 crore, while tenders too were floated. The finance committee of Bangalore University Syndicate approved the estimate and later, it was cleared by the state cabinet. But Bangalore University is delaying the works as UVCE is now autonomous, , UVCE authorities allege.
Despite these shortcomings, UVCE is doing good academically. Principal HN Ramesh said more than 150 companies recruited students last year. “98% per cent of our students got jobs through campus recruitment... A few even got two to three job offers with salary packages varying between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 30 lakh per annum. This is also because we have vocational training of 200 hours starting from the second semester and it helps candidates in campus interviews,” he added.