HOW ASSISTANT PROFESSERS RECRUITMENT SCAM RUNNING UNINTERRUPTED IN INDIAN UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES ?

 

There are several thousands of Universities and several lakhs Colleges affiliated to these Universities in India. All Universities and Colleges recruit the entry level teachers in Universities and Colleges as Assistant Professors. These Assistant Professors are further promoted to Associate Professors and Professors in due course of time.

University Grants Commission has framed Guidelines for recruitment of Assistant Professors in Colleges and Universities. But most of the Guidelines of UGC are flouted by these Universities and Colleges while making the recruitment of Assistant Professors.

Over a period of time, the recruitment of Assistant Professors has become a big scam and a major source of corruption for the Governing Bodies of the Colleges and Universities.

Let us understand how this Assistant Professors Recruitment Scam is running without any scrutiny from the higher authorities. First of all, Guidelines of the University Grants Commission for recruitment of Assistant Professors are not clear. Secondly, whatever guidelines are given by the UGC, the same are not followed by the Universities and Colleges while conducting the recruitment of Assistant Professors. For example, UGC has given the Guideline that for Assistant Professor, there is no requirement of PHD Degree. If any candidate is Post Graduate and have passed UGC NET examination, shall be eligible to apply for Assistant Professor’s job. But Universities and Colleges have found a way to circumvent this Guideline. For example, they are inviting applications for the 100 posts of Assistant Professors. In response to their advertisement they are getting around 10000 Applications. Since they are making direct recruitment based on the interview only, they can not call all the 10000 candidates for interview. To reduce the number of eligible candidates, they themselves have devised a shortlisting criteria in which eligible number of applicants are reduced from 10000 to around 1000. In this shortlisting process, whosoever is possessing the PHD Degree, apart from the criteria prescribed by UGC, shall be called for interview. This is clear violation of UGC Guideline because in this process, all those candidates who are holding PHD degree, have cleared UGC NET Examination and are Post Graduate shall be eligible for interview, which was never the intention of the UGC.

Now let us come to second part of the scam. All colleges affiliated to any university are issuing separate advertisements for the positions to be filled in each college. For example, there is some ABC Central University and there are 1000 colleges affiliated to this University. Assuming that each college require 100 Assistant Professors, there is total requirement of 100000 Assistant Professors across all the 1000 Colleges. But instead of inviting applications for 100000 Assistant Professors in a single advertisement, 1000 colleges will release 1000 advertisements inviting applications for 100 professors each. Governing Body of each college arranging direct interview for these positions and recruitments are made solely on the basis of direct interviews.

 

What is the  ideal solution for stopping this scam ? This is very simple. If we continue with the above example, University should have released one single advertisement for all the 100000 positions of Assistant Professors on behalf of all the affiliated colleges. After receipt of the applications, University should have conducted a written examination in order to short list the candidates. Those shortlisted candidates should have been called for the interview before a selection committee constituted by the University and the candidates selected by this selection committee should be provided to individual colleges as per their original requirement. This transparent process has already been started by the Uttar Pradesh Government, where U.P. Higher Education Commission is recruiting the Assistant Professors for Unaided Non-Govt. Colleges of State and U.P. Public Service Commission is recruiting the Assistant Professors for the Govt. Colleges of the State, through a single advertisement and shortlisting the candidates based on the written examination, to make the selection process transparent and corruption free.

 

Why other state Governments and Universities in India are not replicating the process adopted by Uttar Pradesh Government is a million dollar question? Union Education Ministry as well as University Grants Commission, may look into this recruitment scam which is running uninterrupted for the last several decades and find out a solution on the lines of Uttar Pradesh so that all the recruitments of Assistant Professors from now onwards are made in the transparent manner without any scope of corruption in their appointments.

(My this article was first published in Times of India on 12 October 2022 at the following link:

Assistant professors recruitment scam : How to stop it ? (indiatimes.com)