NEW DELHI: President
Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday urged all new central
universities to ensure that faculty vacancies are filled.
Kovind held the "multistakeholder brainstorming" session, as he put it, to tide over problems being faced by 17 new central universities that have come up since 2009.
The session, which also had HRD minister
Prakash Javadekar and representatives of the ministry of finance in attendance, gave an opportunity to the vice-chancellors to discuss various issues like selection and recruitment of faculty, training and updating skills of academic staff, infrastructure, financial constraints, integration of technology and others.
Urging the VCs to strictly adhere to the academic calendar, Kovind said, "Vacancies should be filled quickly and urgently. Vacancies in teaching staff are unfair on students who have enrolled, and a disservice to their education."
Suggesting that retired professors be engaged for specific periods to fill vacancies, Kovind said that planning for impending vacancies should be done months in advance. Calling the VCs "chief executive" of their universities, the President added that as custodians of public funds, enforcing financial discipline and maintenance of accounts was "important".
"Where possible, it may be prudent to bring in officers from the central services as registrars and financial officers. This would help ensure certain standards," he added.
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