The Hindu : Other States / Orissa News : Khallikote College may lose ‘excellence’ tag

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Sunday, Jul 01, 2007
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Khallikote College may lose ‘excellence’ tag

Staff Reporter

First college in State to get NAAC accreditation
Transfers being effected despite UGC directive

BERHAMPUR: Over a century old Khallikote Autonomous College is on the verge of losing its centre of excellence status provided by the University Grants Commission due to lack of teaching staff.

One third of the posts of teaching staff are vacant. The authorities are worried as the State Government is issuing transfer orders to its existing teaching staff without deputing any one to fill the vacancies.

Its principal L.K.Patnaik said this autonomous college is sanctioned to have 90 posts of teachers of different faculties. But at present it has only 60 teachers. The post of vice-principal has been lying vacant for the last three years.

It is the first institution of the State to get accredited by the NAAC of the UGC. The UGC has also accepted this institution in the list of 97 colleges of the country chosen as Colleges with Potential for Excellence (CPE) last year with provision of special grants.

The UGC had directed the Government not to transfer the faculty and principal for three years with effect from 2006-07.

But the department of higher education seems to have overlooked this directive of the UGC as transfer orders are continuing to reach the teachers of the institution.

No new appointments

The UGC had marked out botany department of the institution as a potential field of excellence. It earlier had nine teachers. With continuous transfers since last year the staff strength has come down to three.

This would also affect its biotechnology department, which may be closed as the teachers of botany department were managing this department.

According to the principal of the autonomous college a NAAC team would again visit the institution next year to reassess its accreditation.

If the State Government fails to take any steps to fill vacancies in it then the college may lose its present status. Earlier, it was graded with B+ status by the NAAC. By 2008 six more teachers of the autonomous college are going to retire.

It may be noted that despite retirements the government has not made any new appointments of lecturers for the colleges of the state since 1992. As per the UGC every PG department should have at least six teachers for science stream and four teachers in Arts stream.

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