The central government on Monday said 6,210 teaching posts are lying vacant in all Central Universities and 12,437 sanctioned non-teaching posts are lying vacant as on date.
Despite the high number of vacancies, one-third of the total sanctioned strength of teachers, the government said there was no such proposal under consideration in the ministry of education to absorb already working ad-hoc, temporary, contract or guest faculty as permanent teachers.
Education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, while responding to a question in the Lok Sabha on vacancies in Central Universities, said the number of vacant teaching positions for OBCs has risen to 300 for the year 2019-20, while for SCs and STs, the figure stands at 172 and 73 respectively.
This is a jump of 23 vacancies for OBCs, 16 for SC and five for STs, from 2018-19. In 2017-18 the vacancies in teaching posts for OBCs were 165, for SCs 113 and STs 38.
The figures were revealed in reply to a question posed by Ganesh Singh, MP from Satna, Madhya Pradesh, related to vacancies in teaching and non-teaching posts.
In the non-teaching posts for 2019-20, there are 40 vacant posts for OBCs, 21 for SCs and 9 for STs. In 2018-19, there were 158 vacant posts for OBCs, 80 for SCs and 40 for STs. In 2017-18, there were 95 vacant posts for OBCs, 69 for SCs and 32 for STs.
In Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), 196 teaching posts and 1090 non-teaching posts are vacant as on 1st July, 2020 and 31st December, 2019 respectively. In three Sanskrit Central Universities, 52 teaching and 116 non-teaching posts are vacant. “Occurring of vacancies and filling up is a continuous process. The Ministry of Education and University Grants Commission (UGC) continuously monitor it with Universities,” he said.
UGC has prepared guidelines for recruitment of faculty in universities, colleges and institutions deemed to be universities outlining the selection procedure and the time frame for recruitment which has been circulated to all Universities to adhere to the guidelines.
“The Universities have also been requested to take steps to ensure that the vacancies in the Universities as well as in the Colleges affiliated to the Universities are filled up at the earliest. However, the onus of filling up the teaching posts lies on Central Universities which are autonomous bodies created under Acts of Parliament,” he said in the reply.
