Kolkata: A wide gulf exists between the number of sanctioned teaching positions and vacancies across eight established state-run universities and that at the 23 universities established after 2011. A majority of them were set up after 2017.Contrary to the perception that vacant posts are few in older institutes, such as Calcutta University, Jadavpur University and Rabindra Bharati University, there are a significantly high number of vacant teaching posts at these premier campuses as well.Several teachers at these universities questioned how departments would function if faculty members were transferred while they were already struggling with severe staff shortage. A senior RBU professor said, “Faculty strength is one of the major parameters for university rankings and NAAC accreditation. If some of us are transferred to other universities, it will negatively impact our ranking and other key evaluation metrics.”At CU, out of around 1,500 total sanctioned teaching positions, 660 remain vacant. At JU, over 315 of the 890 sanctioned posts are unfilled, while at RBU, 100 out of 190 sanctioned positions are vacant.Conversely, among the newer universities, such as Kanyashree University, Biswa Bangla University, Hindi University, and Harichand Guruchand University, no permanent positions have been created or filled apart from the vice-chancellors’ posts. At The Sanskrit College and University, 21 out of 32 sanctioned positions are vacant.Presidency University, however, stands out as an outlier among these newer setups, maintaining a faculty size comparable to the older universities—with nearly 250 teachers against roughly 300 sanctioned posts, leaving around 50 vacancies.TOI spoke to senior officials at many of the 31 state universities a day after CM Suvendu Adhikari addressed the Assembly, where he said experienced professors, accountants and experts from the eight established older institutes would be relocated to help newer campuses build better infrastructure. But many officials felt implementing a standardised transfer policy would not be easy, as the nature and operational model of each university differed.JUTA president Partha Pratim Ray said, “There can be no comparison between the faculty strength of the JU science departments and those at Gour Banga University. JU is a unitary university, where teachers must conduct UG and PG science courses, and UG engineering programmes. In contrast, Gour Banga University offers only PG courses.” He added, “Under NEP 2020, there are interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary UG courses, along with major and minor tracks across different faculties, which inherently require more teachers. JU already faces a vacancy of over 300 teachers, so transferring faculty will only lead to further disruption in academic activities and weaken the public education system.”A teacher at Sanskrit University said, “Ours is a specialised institute. Therefore, recruiting teachers and developing infrastructure is the actual solution, not transferring faculty from one place to another. Given how few universities offer specialised subjects, such as Pali and Sanskrit, transferring teachers will hardly solve the underlying problem.”WBCUTA general secretary Nilay Kumar Saha noted that the higher education minister himself admitted in the Assembly on Thursday that some universities had VC but no other officials, while some had registrars but no buildings. “This is how the remaining universities are functioning. Currently, of the 31 state universities, eight were founded before 2011,” Saha said, reiterating the prerequisite for improving academic performance was infrastructural development, specifically, recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff.But higher education department officials maintained fears of “punishment transfers” were unfounded, asserting that the govt was merely attempting to strike a balance between the older and newer campuses.
