SC, ST teachers' posts gather dust

Seats lie vacant in 40 central varsities

Even as the government is pushing for affirmative action for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in the field of education, most of the posts reserved for teachers from these categories are lying vacant in 40 central universities across the country.

Figures from the ministry of human resource development (HRD) show that less than a third (29 per cent) of the total sanctioned posts for SCs have been filled in 40 central universities. Of the total of 2,521 sanctioned SC posts, only 742 have been filled.

For STs, out of 1,265 sanctioned posts, only 331 (26 per cent) have been filled.
Take the case of Delhi University. It has 255 posts for SCs and 128 for STs, but appointments have been made for only 44 SC and 14 ST seats.

In Jawaharlal Nehru University, 109 posts have been sanctioned for SCs and 62 for STs. The university has, however, hired only 24 SC and 46 ST teachers for these posts.
In Jamia Millia Islamia, only 58 of the 124 sanctioned posts for SCs have been filled. For STs, the university has 62 sanctioned posts, of which only 17 have been filled.

The situation is worse in the Aligarh Muslim University. It has only one SC teacher, and not a single ST teacher — against the sanctioned number of 283 for SC and 142 for STs. The Indira Gandhi National Open University has filled up only 28 of the 67 sanctioned posts for SCs and 13 of the 33 posts for STs.

The central universities in Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu stand at a better position, with the institutions filling up more than 90 per cent of the vacancies for SCs and STs.

The National Commission for Scheduled Castes says the issue has been taken up several times, but nothing has happened so far. “We have taken up this issue, but so far nothing has happened,” T Theethan, joint secretary of the commission said.
“The SCs and other such groups can be empowered only through education, but they are being discriminated against in this very field,” he said.

He added that a committee was being formed to fill up the vacant posts in the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). “First we will look into the vacant posts in BHU, and then at other central universities,” he said.