Universities and affiliated colleges in the State, as also those across the country, are all set to face a dilemma over compliance with the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) latest order implementing the department-wise roster system for appointments in teaching posts as opposed to the existing community rotation based on total number of vacancies in a higher education institution.
The UGC’s order on March 5 directed that all universities prepare the roster system keeping the department as a unit for all levels of teachers as applicable. The department-wise roster should be applied to the total number of posts in each of the categories of faculty, namely professor, associate professor, assistant professor, within the department/subject.
The universities and affiliated colleges in the State are set to be in a quandary over adherence to the new formula by abandoning the existing rotation system modelled on the Kerala Public Service Commission norms.
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Under the existing rotation all posts of the same category, say assistant professor, across different academic departments in a university are taken together for calculation of the reservation quota for communities.
The order of rotation specifies the turn of appointment for open quota and community-based reservation quota. Under the new formula the order of the turn is based on the vacancies of posts of the same category in a department.
“Under the existing system, appointment is made on the basis of a roster that allows us to know under which turn the previous appointment of the same category of posts was made in the university as a whole,” an official of Kannur University said. If the new system was introduced, the existing reservation may undergo radical changes given the fact that a university department will have only five or six vacancies, he said. Most departments having only one vacancy of professor, the vacancies of professors in all departments would invariably come under the open quota, he said.
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The new system was expected to trigger concerns about the impact of the new formula on the existing reservation equation. According to sources in Kannur University, the dilemma over compliance with the UGC order has come up as it is set to publish soon a notification for filling 26 teaching post vacancies in different departments. The university cannot but comply with the UGC formula, they noted.