Teacher shortage for engineering colleges
Filling vacancies is allowed only once every year
Engineering colleges in the state are finding it difficult to recruit teachers because of the rigid recruitment process.
Every year vacancies arise because of some professors attaining superannuation while others quit in search of better opportunities. Some leave the job for further studies.
Some lecturers and professors leave the job in the middle of the year but colleges are allowed to recruit faculty only once in a year, which will be ratified by the varsity.
Take the case of JNTU that has nearly 200 engineering colleges affiliated to it. Faculty selection has to be completed by each college before the university commences its annual inspections in MarchApril.
Before that, each college has to prepare a list of prospective candidates (professors, associate professors and assistant professors) it wants to recruit and submit the list to the university. Every engineering college that wishes to fill teaching vacancies has to follow this schedule. The varsity then fixes the interview schedule and communicates the same to each college.
The varsity-appointed nominees will visit the different colleges and conduct interviews and ratify a few names while rejecting others who, according to them, do not meet the norms. College managements will have to submit a long list so that the authorities can check the credentials of more candidates.
Colleges are on this job from November in order to complete the formalities before March every year, said N. Goutham Rao, president of the Telangana Private Engineering and Professional Colleges Association.
“The present process is very laborious. After the interview, if some vacancies are not filled due to rejections, the process has to start again. Even if college managements give more names for consideration at the last moment, they are not considered. We are asked why we did not give more names at the time of submitting the list. If a candidate applies for associate professor and gets rejected, we urge them to consider him for assistant professor but the panellists don't agree. They ask us why the candidate has not applied for both posts at the same time,” he said.
AFTER THE interview, if some vacancies are not filled due to rejections, the process has to start again