Faculty crisis at Karnataka govt engg colleges as 50% positions vacant

The development comes against the background of the recent decision of AICTE to reduce the intake of three government colleges by 25%, with faculty shortage being cited as one of the main reasons by the committee that inspected the colleges.

Bengaluru: Half the faculty positions are lying vacant in state government engineering colleges, data shows, a poor state of affairs that is affecting the quality of teaching as well as depriving these institutions of precious central funds.

The total sanctioned faculty posts at 16 government-run engineering colleges is 646, of which 307 are vacant, as per the annual report submitted to the government by the department of technical education. 

The last time recruitment was done for these posts was in 2010, reflecting the lack of official seriousness.

The state higher education department's solution — allowing colleges to appoint guest faculties — has crippled the colleges in two ways: one, not having regular faculty is restricting the colleges from getting funds from the central agencies; two, it is also getting difficult to get the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) certificate.

The development comes against the background of the recent decision of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to reduce the intake of three government colleges by 25%, with faculty shortage being cited as one of the main reasons by the committee that inspected the colleges. These colleges were also forbidden from getting any funds from the central schemes.

"There was no recruitment done after 2010. Even for positions that fell vacant because of retirement, death and voluntary retirement, even to fill those posts, we need to get approval of the Finance Department," said an official source from the Higher Education Department.

A principal of a government engineering college said guest faculties come with their issues.

"We cannot expect commitment from guest faculties. If they get a better salary offer, they will quit in the middle of the academic year and even they will not have bonding with students. For some subjects like Computer Science, it is difficult even to get guest faculties," he said.

Officials of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) mentioned that they even submit deficiency reports to the government every year after the Local Inspection Committee (LIC) visit. But nothing much has moved on the recruitment front.

"The LIC parameter will be the same for private and government institutions. After every LIC, we will submit a deficiency report to the government where faculty shortage is also mentioned," said Vidyashankar S, Vice Chancellor VTU.

Dr M C Sudhakar, Minister for Higher Education, said the finance department has been "positive". "It is also the party's commitment in the manifesto. By January we will get clearance, but the notification will be issued after finalisation of internal reservation," he said. 

Same situation with non-teaching positions

Not just teaching, even the non-teaching positions at government engineering colleges are vacant for the last 14 years. As per the data, of the 1150 non-teaching posts, as many as 1,023 are vacant.