Delhi University (DU) has 900 vacant faculty positions, the highest among all central universities, the Union government told Parliament Monday.
The reply was in response to a question from Lok Sabha MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy (BJP), who had sought the number of permanent faculty positions lying vacant in central universities across the country.
Minister of State (MoS) for Education Dr. Subhas Sarkar said in his reply that DU had 311 vacant General category faculty seats. Apart from this, he added, 138 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) were vacant, and so were 70 for Scheduled Tribes (STs), 244 for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 93 for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), and 44 for Persons with Disabilities (PwD).
Allahabad University has 622 vacant faculty positions — 189 for the General category, 99 reserved for SCs, 55 for STs, 186 for OBCs, 57 for EWS, and 36 for PwD.
Government data shows Banaras Hindu University has 532 vacant faculty positions, including 105 reserved for SCs, 80 for STs, 312 for OBCs, 49 for EWS, and 21 for PwD. However, the BHU has a surplus of 35 teachers from the General category.
Altogether, central universities have a total of 6,549 vacant faculty positions, the minister said.
The Ministry of Education has requested all the central higher educational institutions to fill up the vacancies in a mission mode within a period of one year starting from 5 September 2021. Since August 2021, 4,807 posts in central universities have been advertised for which the selection processes are on,
Sarkar Added.
Contractual & ad-hoc faculty
Another reply in the Lok Sabha by the Ministry of Education revealed that DU employs the highest number of contractual faculty (1,044) among all central varsities.
Responding to a query by Trinamool Congress MP Dibyendu Adhikari, who had sought details of temporary or ad-hoc faculty in central universities, the government said that DU had 1,044 contractual faculty members, 52 ad-hoc, and 248 guest faculty members on its rolls as of 1 April 2022.
The hiring of additional teachers on a contractual basis has been an issue plaguing the varsity (DU) for several years now. Ad-hoc teachers reportedly account for about 70 percent of DU faculty in many colleges.
Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh said last week that the low student-teacher ratio was among the reasons that caused the varsity to slip one spot to 13th place in the Ministry of Education’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2022.
The government’s reply in Parliament revealed that the total number of ad-hoc, guest, and contractual faculty employed in central universities across the country stands at 3,904. Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), it said, has 282 non-permanent employees.
“No proposal is under consideration in the University Grants Commission (UGC) to absorb the ad-hoc teachers as permanent teachers. However, the Ministry of Education and UGC from time to time have requested all the central universities to fill up the posts on a regular basis,” the minister said.
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