Over 30% of teaching positions are lying vacant in 45 Central Universities across India.
Of the 18,956 sanctioned teaching positions, about one-third (6,028) were vacant as of February, a Right To Information reply has revealed (Chart 1).
Chart 1 | The chart shows the number of sanctioned, vacant and filled posts in Central Universities.
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A State-wise split shows that 88% of the teaching positions were vacant in Odisha’s central universities — the highest among all States. Jammu & Kashmir U.T. and Tripura are the other two regions where more than half the posts were vacant. On the other hand, Mizoram and Kerala had the least share of vacancies — 15% or less (Chart 2).
Chart 2 | The chart shows the State-wise split of the share of vacant posts in Central Universities. Only top ten States are depicted
UGC Chairman Professor Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar told The Hindu that vacancies in teaching positions arise when the Central University in question was founded newly. “Also, more vacancies can arise in some universities which are located in remote rural areas,” Prof. Kumar said. For instance, the Central University of Odisha is located in Sunabeda town of Koraput district in Odisha which is up to 486 km away from the State capital, Bhubaneshwar.
A.P. University
Among universities, the Central University of Andhra Pradesh had a 100% vacancy, with none of the sanctioned teaching positions filled.
The Central University of Odisha, Dr. Harisingh Gour University in Madhya Pradesh, the Central Kashmir University and the Tripura University had over 50% of seats vacant. The National Sanskrit University in Andhra Pradesh and the Central Sanskrit University in Delhi had the least vacancies — 10% or less (Chart 3).
Chart 3 | The chart shows the university-wise split of the share of vacant posts in Central Universities. Only top ten universities are depicted
The Central University of Andhra Pradesh was founded in 2018. “This is a fairly new university. It usually takes three to five years for a Central University to have a fully functional campus. In new campuses, teaching faculty from older Universities are often asked to mentor and handhold until vacant positions get filled,” Prof. Kumar said.
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Caste-wise data
Overall, only 20% of teacher positions sanctioned under the general category were vacant, compared to 44% among OBC positions, 38% among SC positions and 45% among ST positions. Also notably, 71% of posts sanctioned under the EWS quota and 58% under the Persons with Disabilities were vacant. Among all the reservation groups, General Category positions had the least vacancy share (Chart 4).
Chart 4 | The chart shows the caste-wise split of the share of vacant posts in Central Universities.
“We are constantly striving to fill the gap between general category and OBC/SC/ST category teachers by conducting special recruitment drives. Say if an OBC/SC/ST teaching position is not filled and goes vacant, we cannot replace that with a general category position,” Prof. Kumar added.
“We also sensitise universities to advertise frequently in order to fill up the teaching positions. The recruitment cycle for any University takes four to six months,” he said.
In order to get a window into how Central Universities recruit for teaching positions, the UGC has launched a portal — CU-Chayan, which will ensure that all vacancies are advertised by the Universities on a single platform. “Since May, up to 20,000 teaching candidates have registered themselves on the portal,” Prof. Kumar said.
He added that the UGC is also studying recruitment patterns by running back-end analytics to understand the timelines over which universities recruit for teaching positions.
Source: RTI query filed with the Minister of Higher Education by activist Chandrashekhar Gaur.
porechamaitri.m@thehindu.co.in and vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in
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