New asst profs waiting for postings for more than 2 yrs

 Candidates in the final list for posts of assistant professors in government degree colleges fear that their two-and-a-half-year-long wait may not end even this academic year.

The 2,034 candidates, named in the final list in January, have almost completed the verification process conducted by the Directorate of Collegiate Education (DCE), but have not received any date for the counselling process.

Yogesh A H, president of an association formed by the candidates, said their wait started in January 2015, when applications were invited for 2,160 sanctioned posts. Though they expected the entrance exam to be conducted the same year, it was finally held in March 2016. “The merit list was released and document verification was completed in October 2016. We expected the remaining procedures to be completed in time for the 2017-18 academic year,” Yogesh said. However, the Karnataka Examinations Authority has not announced any date for counselling to assign colleges.

“The DCE has been conducting background checks on all candidates, which includes police verification, character certificate and so on. A few candidates who are in the list but have found other jobs, have not completed this process. The department says it cannot go ahead unless all candidates are verified,” Yogesh said.

The candidates have been requesting the department to conduct counselling at the earliest and hand over their appointment orders by June so that they can join duty this academic year. “Private colleges are not willing to hire us because they think we will quit during the academic year if we receive the joining order from the government. Since we don’t know where we will be posted, we can’t even admit our children to schools now,” one of the candidates said.

The DCE, however, says that counselling for the new professors can be done only after the ongoing transfer of working professors is completed so that they know how many vacant posts are available and in which zones. They intend to appoint the new professors in the ‘C’ zone, in rural colleges.