Chennai: At a meeting of state university registrars last week, higher education minister P Viswanathan proposed forming a new recruitment board to hire faculty members for state universities and govt colleges in the future, saying that they have been functioning with nearly 50% vacancies in teaching and non-teaching staff posts. The higher education department recently collected details of vacancies in all state universities and govt colleges.“Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) lacks expertise in recruiting faculty members for state universities and colleges. The higher education minister asked university officials for their opinions on creating a separate board to recruit faculty members for state universities and colleges,” said a source from a state university.TRB recently declared the results of a recruitment exam that was conducted in Dec last year to fill 2,700 assistant professor posts in govt colleges. It is yet to release the list of shortlisted candidates for the interview.At the meeting, Viswanathan held discussions on filling key positions, including registrars and controllers of examinations. He also reviewed initiatives taken to improve the academic quality, such as capacity building for faculty members, timely conduct of examinations and publication of results, and improvement of college labs and campus infrastructure.The minister then felicitated seven govt college students who secured admissions to top-ranked institutions such as IITs and NITs for postgraduation. They were among the 180 students who attended a residential coaching to aid admissions to higher educational institutions as part of the basic science promotion programme.Higher education secretary Dheeraj Kumar and Tamil Nadu state council for higher education vice-chairperson M P Vijayakumar, among others, attended the meeting.
