379 of 761 colleges under Mumbai University functioning without a principal

There are 761 colleges affiliated with the University of Mumbai, of which 468 have no principals or lack full-time ones, revealed statistics released by the varsity. While 379 colleges (aided and unaided) are functioning without a principal, 89 others have principals on ‘in-charge’ duty.This means six out of every 10 colleges function without fulltime principals. The in-charge principals have several additional responsibilities.

“Most of these colleges are unaided. So they tend to bend rules and regulations, as they don’t receive any grants from the government,” said a senior official from the MU.

The official added that a few years ago, the office of the Director of Education in Pune, had released a government resolution (GR) stating that aided colleges who do not appoint a principal within a stipulated time frame will stop getting grants from the government, including the salaries for teachers.

“However, unaided colleges are not covered under this GR,” he said.

In April, the state lifted a sanction on hiring of principals for aided colleges, which came as good news for institutes where the position was vacant. However, the posts remain unfilled.

While the government stated that the vacant posts are being filled, colleges say the biggest hurdle is to get a basic no objection certificate (NOC) from the government.

“For the past one year, we have been waiting for the state to approve the appointment of our principal, who is still on in-charge duty. Even when it comes to getting approval for hiring new teachers, the government tends to hardly approve 50% of posts against the actual requirement,” said the vice-principal of a suburban college, who did not wished to be named.

Principals have also regularly highlighted the fact that the work expected of them is a lot as compared to the monetary compensation offered in return for it.

“The job of a principal entails administrative as well as academic work and our salaries don’t do justice to the amount of work we do. Even senior professors earn same salaries and they are not even required to do as much work,” said Marie Fernandes, the principal of St Andrew’s College, Bandra.

First Published: Nov 02, 2018 15:36 IST