The future of around 5,000 students of the Khallikote Autonomous College is at stake due to shortage of regular teaching staff.
The degree college, which started as a school in 1856 in Berhampur, has 24 departments and offers six self-financing courses at present. In 1944, degree courses in Arts and Science were introduced while Commerce, Mathematics and other courses were started in subsequent years with affiliation of Utkal University. Later, the affiliation was transferred to Berhampur University which was established in 1967. However, against the requirement of 110 regular faculty 90 posts have been sanctioned for the college. Out of them, 60 posts are lying vacant.
The college, which has been accredited by NAAC and also accorded the CPE (College with Potential for Excellence) status by UGC, is the first choice of students of Ganjam district and southern region of the State. After taking admission, the students are forced to study on their own.
But, the shortfall in faculty strength does not seem to bother the State Government as even after several requests, no step has been taken to start the appointment process. In order to solve the problem of the students, different departments of the college are banking on ad hoc teachers to run the show. Meanwhile, Regional Director of Higher Education has apprised the senior officials of Higher Education Department of the situation and Minister of Higher Education Badri Narayana Patra has assured to look into the matter.