Eight State universities have been functioning with unfilled posts in governing bodies, such as the senate or syndicate. Only in two instances are the vacancies to be filled through election while for the rest, the members must be nominated either by the Chancellor or the Pro-Chancellor.
The Governor is the Chancellor and the Higher Education Minister is the Pro-Chancellor of all the State-run universities.
In the senate, affiliated, self-financing, government institutions and constituent colleges have representation. The syndicate, the highest body in a university, includes bureaucrats who are largely ex-officio members, elected members from the Assembly, professors and persons with academic interest who are either elected from the Senate/academic council or appointed by the Governor-Chancellor.
Normally, the ex-officio members do not attend the syndicate meetings since the Vice-Chancellor is the chairperson of the institution and if the syndicate performs its duty democratically, said a retired professor of Madurai Kamaraj University.
A retired professor of the University of Madras, in which a third of the members are ex-officio, said, “The syndicate is more powerful as meetings are held more frequently than the senate.”
Interestingly, while the University of Madras and the Madurai Kamaraj University, with fewer colleges than the Anna University, have at least 20 members in syndicate, the latter institution, which is an affiliating body for over 600 colleges has just 15 members. Of these, only the posts of ex-officio members are filled and the rest are vacant.
A similar situation is prevalent in the Madurai Kamaraj University, in which seven seats are vacant.
Statute not amended
A university professor said the statute had not been amended after the institution was made the affiliating body. Professors also pointed out that during the previous V-C M. Rajaram’s tenure, the syndicate meetings were erratic and even those that were held, were in the higher education secretary’s office instead of the University.
The vacancy details were provided by the Higher Education Secretary Sunil Paliwal during a recent review meeting of the Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education.
