Patna: Even though the University Grants Commission (UGC) has asked the universities to take serious steps to fill all their vacant posts of teachers at the earliest and upload the status of recruitment on the university activity monitoring portal of UGC by the end of the current month, the universities of Bihar are likely to cut a sorry figure once again.
The UGC has asked the universities several times in the last five years to ensure that the vacant positions in the universities and colleges are filled so that the institutions of higher education may carry out their academic activities without any hindrance and students are not allowed to suffer academically. However, the UGC circulars have so far remained a cry in the wilderness, say academics.

The universities of Bihar present a dismal picture as far as the strength of faculties in different subjects is concerned. According to a rough estimate, nearly 60% of the sanctioned posts of teachers in universities and colleges have been vacant for the last several years.
The Federation of University Teachers’ Associations of Bihar working president Kanhaiya Bahadur Sinha said there are more than 25 lakh students enrolled in higher education institutions. Still, there are less than 5,000 teachers to teach them.
“The implementation of a choice based credit system (CBCS), both at the undergraduate and postgraduate stages and four-year academic programme at the undergraduate level as per the recommendation of the New Education Policy-2020, have created more demand for subject teachers in all the institutions. But, no post of teacher has been sanctioned in any of the subjects in any university (except in the newly-created universities) in the state. Rather, several posts of teachers in different universities were curtailed for the sake of so-called rationalisation of posts through a joint initiative of the chancellor’s secretariat and the state education department more than a decade back,” he lamented.
Patna University (PU) students’ welfare dean Anil Kumar said had as many as 898 sanctioned posts of teachers, including 69 professors and 184 associate professors until a decade back, but the number was reduced to 595 following the rationalisation. However, the total number of teachers serving the university today is only 290.
The university is managing its academic activities somehow with the help of ‘guest’ faculties appointed on an ad-hoc basis, said.

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