Centre mulls creating 5,000 teachers posts in varsities, colleges

New Delhi: The Centre proposes to create 5,000 faculty positions in universities and colleges under the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) during the current Plan period. The Rs 99,000 crore RUSA programme was approved by the Union cabinet last month to boost gross enrolment ratio to 30 percent by 2020 from the present 19 percent. According to the HRD ministry, support will be provided to fill positions in the category of assistant professors or equivalent cadre against vacancies and a fixed amount of Rs 5.8 lakh will be given by the Centre per year for each faculty position to the states.[caption id=“attachment_1253847” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  More teachers to colleges and universities. Reuters[/caption] Any excess over this amount because of higher scales, grade pay or DA increase has to be borne by the state government, ministry officials said. The recruitment process will have to adhere to UGC norms and regulations. Officials said states with more than 20:1 ratio will have to first commit to sanction and fill positions to bring down the faculty-student ratio ration to 20:1. States would need to commit to take over the liability of faculty positions at the end of the scheme. Priority for recruitment will also be given to those states where more recruitment has taken place in the universities and colleges during the last three years, they said. One of the pre-requisites for states to claim the financial assistance under RUSA would be to declare lifting of any ban, whatsoever, on hiring of permanent faculty members in higher education institutions. PTI