Shortage of varsity teachers hits quality education in Odisha: CAG

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Feb 13: 

Inadequate number of teaching staff in government-run universities in Odisha has attributed to the decline in quality education to the students, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) pointed out in its report which was presented in the State Assembly by Finance minister Pradip Amat here on Thursday.

The state government has opened many courses at the post graduate (PG) level in various universities but hasn’t made enough provisions to recruit teaching staff to provide education, the CAG said in its report.

Citing the shoddy state of affairs in state’s three premier universities—Utkal, Brahmapur and Ravenshaw—the CAG in its report said, these varsities do not have adequate teaching staff which hampers the quality of education. As per UGC (Fitness of Certain Universities for Grants) Rules, 1974, at least one professor and as many lecturer should be appointed in each PG department. However, 11 professors and 5 lecturers in PG departments of these universities are lying vacant.

Posts of professors in Utkal University Law Department, Brahmapur University’s Zoology, Home Science, Education, Women Studies, Ravenshaw University’s Statistics, Philosophy, Sanskrit, Computer Science, Urdu, Persian, and Bengali departments are yet to be filled up, the report said.

Similarly posts of lecturers are lying vacant in Utkal University’s Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Women Studies departments. In Ravenshaw University, Computer Science, Persian, Urdu and Bengali departments do not have lecturers, the report pointed out.

In addition to this, posts of as many as 610 teaching staff were sanctioned to be filled up of which only 372 were filled by December last and the remaining 39% posts are lying vacant.

“In Utkal, Ravenshaw, Brahmapur and Fakir Mohan Universities, 49.21%, 31.37%, 32.90% and 29.16% posts of teaching staff are respectively lying vacant,” it said.

Coming down heavily on the varsity authorities, the CAG, in its report, said, the Utkal University could not recruit 13 professor posts and 20 lecturer posts between 2011 and 2014 when it was reeling under acute shortage of teaching staff.

Besides, education in PG departments in the Utkal University is in a shambles. The student-teacher ratio in Science department is 10:1 and 15:1 in Commerce department.

As per UGC guidelines, the student-teacher ratio in PG departments should be 10:1 in Science and 15:1 in Commerce department. However, it is 34:1 in Utkal university, 52:1 in Ravenshaw university and 20:1 in Fakir Mohan university.

The report also stated that a total of 495 colleges have been deprived of UGC grant as the state government had not taken any step in the formation of development councils in these colleges to be eligible for the grant.

“This apart, since the state government has no proposal to set up government colleges in eight backward districts, it has been deprived of Central assistance to the tune of Rs 21.36 crore,” the report pointed out.