UGC seeks data on vacant teachers' posts from varsities

With the shortage of teachers in country's higher education institutions continuing to be a major concern, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has stepped up its efforts to ensure that all universities and colleges fill up vacant posts of faculty members at the earliest.

The higher education regulator has sought all the universities and colleges affiliated to them to provide it with details on the number of teachers posts lying vacant along with those reserved for other backward classes (OBCs), scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs) and economically weaker sections (EWS).

In a letter to vice-chancellors of all universities including those of the institutions accorded deemed-to-be-university status, UGC secretary Rajnish Jain has sought to know the steps taken by them for filling up the vacant posts.

The commission has asked the institutions to share the details on the web portal of the National Higher Education Resource Centre, set up by the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan earlier this year.

"All universities and their affiliated colleges are requested to upload the details on the portal positively by August 10," Jain stated in the letter.

The institutions had been asked to provide details last month.

The portal was launched to create a centralised database of sanctioned and filled up posts of the teachers in country's universities and colleges to monitor the vacancy positions and steps being taken by the respective institutions to fill them up. This also served as a centralized database of the students' intake capacity of the institutions and the number of seats filled up.

“Shortage of faculty members in the universities and colleges is affecting the quality of higher education. Furnishing of details by the institutions will give a clear picture of the vacancy positions and help the UGC take effective steps to ensure that the vacant posts are filled up at the earliest,” official sources in the HRD ministry told DH.

While as many as 7,000 posts of teachers are lying vacant in the centrally-funded higher education institutions including central universities, the percentage of vacancy of teachers is estimated to be in the ranging of 30% to 50% in the universities and colleges functioning under the State government.

HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank recently assured the Parliament that all vacant posts of the teachers at the centrally funded higher education institutions will be filled up within six months.

On June 4, the UGC issued guidelines to all universities and colleges for recruitment of teachers, asking them to identify the vacant posts and complete the exercise to fill up them within a period of six months.