Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

Concern over dwindling faculty

By G. Narasimha Rao

VISAKHAPATNAM: The last teacher recruitment in Andhra University was 10 years ago, and there are no indications of fresh appointments being made in near future.

With almost all political parties accepting the new economic policy, the old method of recruitment has been laid to rest. The situation is not likely to change even if there is a change of guard. According to rough estimates there are more than 500 vacancies of teacher posts in AU and the number of vacancies in the 14 universities in the State is close to 4,000.

If teachers are not recruited, the present faculty strength of about 700 will be halved by 2013 due to retirement of teachers on superannuation. During the last 10 years, it is estimated that over 150 teachers have retired.

Many departments are understaffed now. The departments boasting of a strength of 25 teachers in the past have only less than half that number now and some other departments will be without a teacher after a few years.

Another factor that is bothering the teachers now is the dwindling number of applications for admission into some of the courses in the campus colleges, while courses like the master's programme in human rights, women's studies and Urdu have no takers at all.

Some courses are likely to be abandoned this year since they have received less than 20 applications. If at least five students have not joined (which is not guaranteed since the required number of students have to qualify through the AU Common Entrance Test 2004) the course will not be offered. Then the teachers will not have any work and their future will be uncertain.

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