Fill faculty vacancies by October: Dharmendra Pradhan tells central varsity VCs

Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday asked vice chancellors of central universities to fill over 6,000 vacancies in faculty positions in mission mode by October.

Forty-five central universities have 6,229 faculty positions vacant – almost one-third of the total sanctioned strength of 18,000 – which was top on agenda of Pradhan's meeting with vice chancellors of 45 central universities.

Of the 6,229 vacancies, 1,012 faculty posts are reserved for scheduled castes, 592 (ST), 1,767 (OBC), 806 (EWS) and 350 (divyang), Pradhan said, adding that the rest of the seats were for the general category.

The minister asked the vice chancellors to issue advertisement announcing vacancies next week and speed up the recruitment and complete the process by October this year.

The Minister exhorted the Universities to come up with the strategies for making India fully literate, as well as to contribute to helping the country to meet its Nutrition Challenge during ‘Poshan Month’ as a mark of 75th anniversary of Independence.

Pradhan also asked the vice chancellors to assume pioneering roles in building capacities, initiating frameworks for implementation of Academic Bank of Credit, Multiple Entry & Exit, virtual universities and several other aspects of the National Education Policy from this academic year itself.

The vice chancellors were also requested to encourage sports in their Universities, thereby promoting a sporting culture in the country, besides exhorting students to become job creators by promoting innovation and research in their respective campuses.

Earlier, the minister lauded the Jawaharlal Nehru University for introducing a course on counter-terrorism for Master of Science dual-degree students specialising in international relations at JNU’s School of Engineering.

This course and two others – India's World View in the 21st Century, and Significance of Science and Technology in International relations – were approved by the JNU Academic Council on August 17. The three courses were approved by the Executive Council of the varsity on Thursday.

A section of JNU teachers and students had objected to the introduction of the course titled Counter-Terrorism, Asymmetric Conflicts and Strategies for Cooperation among Major Powers, alleging it states that 'jihadi terrorism' is the only form of 'fundamentalist-religious terrorism'.

The teachers claimed that the course also asserts that communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China were state-sponsors of terrorism that influenced radical Islamic states.