HYDERABAD: As all universities in Telangana face a serious shortage of teachers due to lack of recruitment, a strongly-worded letter by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to the vice-chancellors (VC) of all State and Central universities might help build some pressure on the State government to take up recruitment soon.
The UGC, in its letter dated October 22, directed all VCs to immediately take serious steps for recruitment of faculty at the Universities and affiliated colleges immediately, which it pointed out is important for improving the quality of higher education. The UGC also directed the VCs to upload the status on its portal meant for monitoring activities of universities, on or before November 10.
In its letter, the UGC conveyed that delay in filling up of the vacant faculty positions will be “viewed seriously” and it “may lead to appropriate action by the UGC against such institutions”.When contacted, Osmania University registrar Prof Ch Gopal Reddy said that as per the UGC’s directions, the University will soon be taking measures for faculty recruitment before the deadline, and that the notification for recruitment will also be out soon.
It may be mentioned here that the State government had earlier sanctioned the recruitment of 1,061 faculty posts in 11 State universities, which included 415 posts in Osmania University.
However, even back in 2016, the number of vacancies in all the 11 State universities were at around 1,504 posts, which included 323 professor posts, 735 associate professor posts and 446 assistant professor posts. These numbers are expected to have increased further.
Battu Satyanarayana, retired head of Chemistry department in Osmania University and chairman of the Telangana State Federation of University Teachers Associations (TSFUTA), said: “Sanction for faculty recruitment was given in November 2017. It has been already two years and recruitment has not been conducted. Moreover, the number of teachers in varsities has further gone down, as many teachers have retired. So there should also be a rise in number of teachers to be recruited.”