New higher edu min faces staff, research challenges

Bhubaneswar: Newly-appointed higher education minister Rohit Pujari is faced with three major challenges — teacher recruitment, improvement of research output and accreditation of state public universities, educationists said.
Dealing with the case, pending before the Supreme Court, on the Odisha Universities (Amendment) Act, 2020, could be another priority of Pujari. On May 20, the apex court stayed the Act, challenged for violating the University Grants Commission (UGC) Regulations, 2018, particularly in terms of selection of vice-chancellors and faculty members.
Following the court’s order, the UGC wrote to the higher education department and the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC), asking them to refrain from undertaking any further steps regarding recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff for universities. Owing to this, recruitment of over 600 university teachers, conducted by the OPSC, is yet to be completed.
Former Berhampur University vice-chancellor Jayant Kumar Mohapatra said shortage of teachers not only affects teaching and research works but it also negatively impacts accreditation and ranking of universities. “National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) team will soon visit the universities to assess their performance. If the universities do not get good accreditation or ranking from the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), it will impact the funding also,” he added.
He also said most of the state colleges do not have NAAC accreditation. “If these colleges do not get accredited, it may create problems in future while requesting funds from the Centre through different schemes like the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan. It will be a major task for the new minister and his department to guide colleges and universities to get good NAAC accreditation and NIRF ranking,” Mohapatra said.