MADURAI: UGC will give financial assistance to government and government-aided colleges in the State to fill up teaching posts. Education experts say this might just be the right time to fill all teaching faculty vacancies across the State.
University Grants Commission Secretary Rajnish Jain has sent guidelines to all Vice-Chancellors of Universities, including Deemed Universities, on recruiting faculties in all Higher Educational Institutions(HEIs).
"All HEIs should follow the selection process as per their acts, statutes or constituent documents. The selection process should be in accordance with the UGC guidelines. Ensure that all vacant posts, along with the reservations details, are uploaded on the UGC portal. The selection would be monitored by the MHRD and UGC through this portal," he said in his letter.
"HEIs should initiate and complete the selection process within a period of six months including identification of vacancies, permission for filling up vacancies, the release of advertisement for vacancies, the constitution of the selection committee, scrutiny of application and conduct of interviews, and approval of the authority."
The secretary's letter also has a mention of the time frame for each process.
"From 2019, UGC has sent three guidelines to recruit the faculties across the nation. In this letter, UGC has given a time frame for each process and informed the HEIs to ensure every process is transparent. UGC has clearly mentioned that violation of its guidelines may lead to an action against the HEIs, including withholding grants," P Marutha Muthu, former Vice-Chancellor of Madurai Kamaraj University(MKU) said speaking to TNIE.
Former syndicate member of MKU and former Principal of The Madura College R Murali said, "Though the TN Government is starting so many new colleges, it did not come forward to appoint people in the UGC approved vacancies in Government Arts and Sciences colleges.
"Just appointing guest lecturers by paying Rs 20,000 would not solve the problem. As per the UGC norms, HEIs need to pay Rs 50,000 to guest lecturers. However, the TN Government has not followed this norm," he said.
He added that for the past five years, government-aided colleges in the State only filled the faculty vacancies allegedly by getting money from the candidate. The present DMK government should look into this issue, he added.