Tamil Nadu - Others   

Over 2000 lecturers' posts lying vacant in various colleges in T.N.

T. Saravanan

"On an average, managements of aided colleges spend Rs.15 lakhs per year as salaries to teaching assistants to fill the gap. Only affluent managements can afford such a huge expenditure."

MADURAI: Growing number of vacancies of lecturers' posts in colleges is a cause for concern in academic circles. Over 2000 posts, accumulated over the years, are lying vacant in various colleges all over Tamil Nadu.

Having understood the predicament, the State Government has ordered the appointment of guest lecturers in Government colleges for a consolidated pay of Rs.80 per hour, which also gave the liberty to respective principals to appoint guest lecturers.

But the process had to be stopped following a court order directing the State to recruit only State Level Eligibility Test (SLET)/ National Eligibility Test (NET) qualified candidates and pay them UGC scales of pay.

In this context, only Government colleges had been taken into consideration, but aided colleges too suffered from the same problem, point out teachers.

"On an average, managements of aided colleges spend Rs.15 lakhs per year towards the payment of salaries to teaching assistants appointed to fill the gap. But it is not possible for all colleges, as only affluent managements can afford such a huge expenditure. To compound the problem, the State Government has not released the non-salary grant for aided colleges for the past three years. The non-salary grant is used to meet expenditure for stationeries, electricity bills, etc.," G. Thiruvasagam, executive secretary, Madurai Kamaraj University Colleges' Management Association, said.

While some aided colleges manage the affairs with fund flow from their self-financing programmes, other colleges suffer.

"The money generated from self-financing courses can be used for other development works, if the Government releases the funds and pays salary to new recruits in sanctioned posts," Prof. Thiruvasagam said. Teachers' association point out that in some colleges students are clubbed together and teachers made to handle classes with more than 200 students.

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