The State government has not appointed guest faculty for first-grade colleges, making it difficult for students and permanent staff, who alone cannot cover the entire syllabus. The students are worried about appearing for the examinations, without attending classes on many papers in the current semester.
The academic year for the third semester students began on September 1 this year in colleges affiliated to University of Mysore. The teachers were asked to conduct classes online. The last day of working for these semesters would be February 28, 2021, as per the revised calendar of events released by the university.
In most of the colleges, only final year students are attending offline classes while the rest have been instructed to attend online classes. However, they also can visit colleges to consult the teachers individually.
In the absence of guest faculty, the permanent faculty are finding it difficult to handle the subjects. In some colleges, there is only one permanent faculty against a workload of 100 hours per week.
An assistant professor of Commerce in a college in Hassan district, who wished not to be quoted, said he was the only teaching faculty for a workload of 100 hours, including postgraduate classes, in a week. “Going by the workload, we need at least 10 guest teachers or five permanent staff. One person can't cover the entire syllabus,” he said. As per norms, an assistant professor is assigned 16 hours of teaching hours in a week.
14,000 guest faculty
Almost all first-grade colleges in the State depend on guest faculty to handle the workload. “We have the staff to cover only half of the subjects prescribed in the final year. Whether it is online or offline, one person cannot teach all subjects at a stretch,” said another assistant professor.
In some colleges, there is only one faculty to teach English. The teacher has to handle language classes for first and second-year students, besides taking classes for those students who have taken English literature as one of the core subjects.
Pradeep P., Commissioner of Collegiate Education, told The Hindu that the department had sent a proposal for the appointment of 14,000 guest faculty. “We sent the proposal about 25 days ago. It has to be approved by the government for further process,” he said. The Department of Higher Education has sent the proposal for recruitment of 900 guest faculty for polytechnic colleges and 280 for engineering colleges, he added.
