Acute shortage of faculty in univs: Panel

While serious efforts are underway to implement the quota regime in Central universities, a Parliamentary Committee has said that there is a serious shortage of faculty at the current level of demands.

As per the information available, in the 16 Central universities, there were 1,988 vacancies as on March last year, with the Banaras Hindu University and Delhi University having as many as 687 and 396 vacancies respectively, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on HRD said in its report.

"Situation is also far from satisfactory in JNU, Visva Bharti and Mizoram University," it said noting that out of total vacant 1,988 posts, 1,056 posts belonged to lecturer category.

Expressing surprise over such a large number of posts of lecturers lying vacant, which was the entry point to a University, the Committee apprehended that situation might be worse in State Universities.

In order to attract and retain the qualified and highly motivated teachers, the Committee felt that there was a need to supplement their salaries with an attractive package of perquisites and support for academic activities coupled with appropriate recognition with outstanding achievement.

"Our higher education system is faced with many challenges today. The pressure on higher education system is going to further increase due to large number of additional students expected to join the higher education institutions in coming years, particularly due to upward pull generated by popular interventions like Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Mid-Day Meal Scheme," it said.