Universities hard put to comply with UGC’s instructions

PATNA: While almost all the colleges and universities in the state are facing an acute shortage of teachers, the UGC is insisting on implementation of choice-based credit transfer system in the institutions of higher education. The institutions are also supposed to introduce semester system both at undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Both the UGC and the state government have also made it clear that colleges and universities would not be entitled to development grants (sanctioned by the UGC during each plan period) and infrastructural development grants under Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) unless they are accreditated by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).
Academics fail to understand how the colleges and universities would improve their academic standard and obtain satisfactory grading from the NAAC if there are no teachers to teach students. No academic reform is possible if there are not sufficient well-qualified teachers to train and guide students, said Patna University Teachers’ Association general secretary Anil Kumar.
Federation of University Teachers’ Associations of Bihar (Futab) working president Kanhaiya Bahadur Sinha and general secretary Sanjay Kumar said even though more than 4,000 posts of teachers are lying vacant in different colleges and universities of the state for the last several years, no effective step has yet been initiated by the state government to fill up these vacancies. The 10-year report card presented by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar recently is silent on this issue.
It is paradoxical while the number of students passing matriculation and intermediate examinations have increased manifold in recent years, the number of teachers has declined considerably. Not a single teacher has been appointed anywhere in the state during the last 12 years. Consequently, hundreds of colleges are going without teachers in several subjects. For instance, a multi-faculty college under Magadh University located at Naubatpur (in Patna district) having more than 3,500 students on its roll has just five teachers, they said.
Meanwhile, the college and university teachers of the state will join the all-India cease work programme at the call of All India Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organizations (AIFUCTO) on August 7 in protest against the reported indifference of the government to higher education. They will go to their workplace wearing black badges and remain on the campus, but won’t perform any work. Representatives from every college will go to New Delhi to participate in the hunger strike at Jantar Mantar that day.
AIFUCTO’s demands include filling up of all vacant posts of teachers, constitution of seventh pay review committee, scrapping of academic performance indicator and review of UGC regulations, 2010, with relaxation for PhD degree holders in fresh university appointments.