CHENNAI: Fulfilling its promise made in this year’s budget that 15,000 more seats will be created in government arts and science colleges, the Tamil Nadu government’s Higher Education (HE) department issued an order last week to introduce 252 new courses in 100 colleges across TN.
However, the department has asked the Collegiate Education Commissioner (CEC) to engage only temporary guest lecturers (GLs) to cater to the increased number of courses and students. Moreover, it has sanctioned less than 50% of the number of GLs sought by the CEC.
As per the order, the proposal sent by the CEC to the government said that 558 GLs will be required to teach these 252 courses for the first-year students who join these courses in both first and second shifts in colleges.
Consequently, the CEC has sought Rs 13.95 crore for the 2025-26 academic year to pay salaries to these GLs at the rate of Rs 25,000 per month. (GLs are not paid salaries during the two-month vacation period).
However, without explicitly mentioning any reason, the order sanctioned approval for engaging 252 GLs and allotted Rs 6.3 crore for their salaries.
“CEC had asked for money for the total number of staff needed, but the department has allocated lesser funds because they want to manage gap with the available staff. This is unfair and it will affect the quality of teaching also,” said V Thangaraj, president, All Government UGC Qualified Guest Lecturers Association, which has been demanding to increase salary of GLs for long.
Of the 15,354 seats added in total, 2,008 have been added by incremental increase of seats in 173 existing courses in 29 government colleges.
203 guest lecturer posts sanctioned in 57 colleges with the addition of 10,396 seats
For these, additional faculty have neither been sought by the CEC nor sanctioned by the education department.
Another 10,396 seats have been added by introducing 203 new courses in second shift in 57 colleges. For these, a total of 203 GLs have been sanctioned, which is at the rate of one staff per course. Another 2,950 seats have been added by introducing 49 new courses in first and second shifts 43 colleges. For these, 49 GLs have been sanctioned.
The total number of additional 252 GLs allotted for these 13,346 seats roughly translates to a pupil-to-teacher ratio of 53:1. It can be recalled that there are over 7,000 permanent faculty vacancies in government arts and science colleges across TN.
Teachers alleged there has been no recruitment of faculty in government and government-aided arts and science colleges in the state for the last 10 years. After the incumbent government came to power, Teachers’ Recruitment Board (TRB) started the recruitment process for 4,000 faculty positions, but it has not progressed due to legal hurdles and other reasons.
Thangaraj said while government wants to rely solely on GLs for these new courses and seats instead of filling vacancies, it is also not ready to pay them a decent salary. He expressed disappointment that their demand for increasing their salary and to pay salary for the two months of vacation, during which they are asked to work for exam paper evaluation and other work, has not been met. CEC E Sundaravalli and senior officials of HE department could not be reached for a comment by TNIE on Friday.