Central varsities have 26% vacant posts: Govt

Hindustan Times

4 days ago

Central Universities (CUs) face a significant faculty shortage as nearly 26% of the total 18,951 sanctioned posts remain vacant, with a disproportionate shortage in reserved categories, the education ministry data shared with Rajya Sabha on Wednesday revealed. Central varsities have 26% vacant posts: Govt
Reserved categories — Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) — account for 36.7% of the total 4,889 vacant posts across 46 central universities funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC). In contrast, only 14.6% of general category posts remain unfilled.
The data shared by Union minister of state (MoS) in education Sukanta Majumdar, in response to questions asked by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha, shows that 54% of the professor posts out of sanctioned 2,537 remain unfilled, followed by 36.6% vacanct associate professor posts out of sanctioned 5,105 and 14.5% vacancies for assistant professors out of sanctioned 11,309 posts.
Despite the constitutional mandate of 15% reservation for SCs, 7.5% for STs, and 27% for OBCs to ensure adequate representation, over one-third of reserved faculty posts in CUs remain vacant out of the sanctioned 7,153 positions, official data shows.
Among these, OBCs face the highest shortfall, with 40.4% of 3,688 sanctioned posts unfilled, followed by STs with 37% vacancies out of 1,155 posts and SCs with 30.7% vacancies out of 2,310 posts. The general category has the lowest shortfall, with only 14.6% of its 10,836 sanctioned posts vacant.
Along with vacancies, Jha asked for the data on the number of candidates declared 'not found suitable' (NFS) for faculty positions and the corrective steps taken to ensure fair hiring of reserved category candidates. In response, Majumdar said, 'The details of the number of candidates 'Not Found Suitable' by selection committees for teaching posts in Central Universities are not maintained centrally.'
Majumdar said that UGC's 2018 Regulations on faculty appointment 'provide for a transparent and objective selection procedure' for university and college teachers, requiring inclusion of SC/ST/OBC, minority, women, or differently-abled representatives in the selection committee when candidates from these categories apply.
Harish Wankhede, assistant professor at Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, the large number of vacant faculty posts of reserved categories could be attributed to three major reasons: UGC's '13-point roster system, non commitment of those who run the universities towards sensitivity on social justice policies, and caste biases.
'First one is UGC's '13-point roster system' which suggests which posts will be reserved for whom and in which centre in which category. There is some kind of non-transparency and mischief played by the administration and seats are reserved in such a way that the suitable candidate for the posts will not be found. The second reason is non commitment of the directors or principals or vice-chancellors who run the university towards sensitivity towards the social justice policies. The third reason is the caste biases in universities and we still find that teaching posts are seen as very privileged posts and before 1996 that there were no OBC faculty members. So, the social elites or upper caste feel that education is a domain for their power and privileges and there is a hesitation from them to open the gates of universities for reserved category candidates,' he said.