BU recruitment rules make hiring faculty difficult for pvt colleges

BHOPAL: Despite half of the posts lying vacant in private colleges affiliated to the Barkatullah University (BU), recruitment for faculty could not be filled because of a recruitment rule ‘Code-28’.
According to the code, at least five candidates must apply for a senior faculty post in private colleges. However, the code itself has become a hurdle just two months before the beginning of new academic session.
Prof Praveen Sahu, who is eligible for a job in any of the private colleges and applied for a job in one of them, told TOI, “I have the eligibility for the post of professor and applied for it but couldn’t be recruited.Interestingly, the interview process for the recruitment couldn’t begin yet, because of a condition imposed over the recruitment process in code-28 by fixing minimum number of applicants at five for the post.”
However, thousands of students in these colleges are suffering due to the lack of teachers.Even the private colleges are feeling helpless because of the recruitment condition.
“We have vacancy for the post of professors and a recruitment panel selected by the university was there in the college, but members refused to hold interviews saying there must at least five applications to begin the process. There is always dearth of eligible applicants and rules have made it even more difficult to hire faculty members,” said the director of a private college.
He said candidates could not be recruited despite being eligible for the post. “There are no such rules in UGC guidelines, but the university by adding this clause has made hiring process very rigid and some flexibility is needed. It is not a good situation for both the faculty as well as students,” he said.
Colleges have pointed out another flaw in ‘Code-28’, which says the panel must have at least two subject experts and absence of any one of them would rule out the beginning of the process. “What is the role of two subject experts in a panel for recruiting a faculty,” asked another college director. The colleges are clueless as to how to hire teachers for next academic session.
BU registrar Ajit Shrivastava admitted colleges are not able to recruit faculty. “We have raised this issue before higher authorities and are waiting for their response,” said Shrivastava.