Government arts and science colleges stare at inevitability of stepping into 2025-26 session with depleted faculty strength

Government arts and science colleges are staring at the inevitability of managing the 2025-26 academic session with inadequacy of teachers what with regular faculty retiring in droves this year.

As many as 12 regular faculty of the Government Arts and Science College in Coimbatore are retiring from service this year. From the Economics department alone, four faculty members have completed their service. The department was already short of faculty, it is learnt.

Representatives of teacher organisations apprehend the crisis situation will accentuate over the next four to five years by when regular faculty will account for only in single digits in the government arts and science colleges

In the absence of regular appointment of faculty for a decade now, the colleges have been struggling to streamline the teaching-learning process.

“The existing faculty end up handling more work load. The Government ought to, at this juncture, expedite the process of filling 4,000 vacancies in Assistant Professor cadre, which was initiated last year,” T. Veeramani, Principal, Government Arts and Science College for Women at Puliyakulam in the city, said.

Guest faculty account for close to 80 percent of the faculty in the Government Arts and Science College in Ooty.

“Nevertheless, government colleges in rural locations suffer the most. While there is sufficient enrolment of students in UG programmes owing to the Tamil Pudhalvan and Pudhumai Penn schemes that entitles those who take up higher education after six years of study in Government schools to ₹1,000 per month, inadequacy of faculty raises the question of the purpose of higher education,” a functionary of a teacher association said.

There is apparently no initiative taken as yet by the Higher Education Department to post guest lecturers to the vacancies caused by retirement this year.

The government had rather taken a position in the High Court earlier this year that the guest lecturers cannot be paid the UGC prescribed honorarium of ₹1,500 per lecture subject to a maximum of ₹50,000 per month, from the existing ₹25,000.

The onus is on the government to make higher education pursuits by rural students meaningful. Be it regular faculty or guest lecturers, there is a need to maintain student-faculty ratio of 1:25, a senior professor in the Government Arts and Science College in Coimbatore emphasised.