No new faculty, varsities make do with guest lecturers

Complying with the guidelines laid down by the University Grants Commission (UGC) over the recruitment of permanent faculty, universities across Karnataka have decided to begin the new academic year with guest faculty along with a few permanent faculty.

Citing the imminent verdict by the Supreme Court on the Special Leave Petition filed by the Union HRD Ministry against a court order curtailing reservation for Schedule Caste (SC)/Schedule Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC), the UGC has put the recruitment of academic staff in all universities on hold. This has left a lot of vacancies for teaching staff in various universities.

Speaking to DH, the Bengaluru Central University (BCU) Vice-Chancellor (VC) S Japhet said, “The BCU will go ahead with guest faculties. Based on the seniority we will hire the candidates on a temporary basis. If we are still short of hands we will bring in the retired faculties of Bangalore University and make sure the current academic year
will kick start without any delay.”

Based on an order by the Allahabad High Court in March, the UGC, which regulates the universities across India, had directed all the universities across the country to consider the actual number of posts reserved for SC, ST and OBC at the department level rather than at the University and institution level.

The same order was also upheld by the Supreme Court. However, following protests against the SC order across the country, the UGC and HRD ministry filed a special leave petition to review the order and asked all the educational institutions not to go ahead with any recruitment until the final verdict.

After the trifurcation, the faculties have been split among the three universities. At this juncture, we do not have an alternative than to make do with guest faculty. We cannot delay the commencement of the academic year and we also have to obey the orders of the UGC,” explained Venugopal KR, Vice-Chancellor, Bangalore University.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear the review petition filed by the union government shortly.