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| Fate of BGSBU tells why people take Education Minister's claims with a grain of salt | | 1 professor and 18 departments, contractuals and retired people run the show; varsity to start new centers | | Akshay Azad
Early Times Report
Jammu, June 6: Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah University (BGSBU) Rajouri might be the only varsity in the country which has only one permanent professor for nearly two dozen departments, virtually mocking higher education.
Sources told Early Times that Prof. Mohammad Asgar, Principal College of Engineering and Technology, is the only permanent professor in the university, while rest of the professors have been re-employed after retirement from other varsities.
The university has also employed three retired professors to run the show-one of them is 80-year-old.
"Prof. IA Hamal is also a professor but he is holding an administrative post and is also from Jammu University and not a permanent professor of BGSBU," said the sources, adding that Prof. GH Dar is a Research fellow of Mahatma Gandhi Chair of Ecology and Environment, while Prof. AK Koul, 80, retired from Jammu University.
Prof. Nigath Basu, Head of Department of Education, is also a retired professor and not a permanent professor.
The BGSBU has 18 departments, and as per UGC guidelines, a professor should head each department, but this varsity has only one permanent professor.
The varsity has been citing financial crunch for not employing permanent professors and utilizes services of contractual lecturers to run several departments. However, surprisingly, the administration is now going to launch new centers from this session.
Sources said that in the last academic session, varsity administration had started six new PG courses including Botany, Zoology, Pure Mathematics, English, Economics and Education. However, contractual teachers are running most of them.
Sources said that according to SAP parameters of UGC, for opening a new department, a varsity should firstly fill at least 50 percent posts including one post of professor, 2 associate professors and 4 assistant professors, but BGSBU had started the courses without recruiting permanent faculty members.
A faculty member of MBA department has been running the Economics department too while no permanent recruitment has been made so far, said the sources, adding that only four faculty members including two assistant professors and two contractual lecturers have been running two PG programmes of Mathematics including Applied Mathematics and Mathematics.
The department of Education, sources said, is entirely run by contractual lecturers and the head of department Prof. Nigath Basu who retired from Kashmir University. The department of English is run by two contractual and one permanent faculty member.
The Centre for Bio-diversity Studies is offering three PG programmes-Botany, Zoology and Biotechnology-along with M.Phil and PhD programmes, which are being run by only nine teachers.
"The recruitment process for permanent faculty positions was initiated years back but till today no interviews were conducted," the sources said, adding, "SC/ST candidates had secured a stay from court on the recruitment process as varsity had not reserved seats for them. The issue could be easily solved by re-advertising the posts, but so far the process has been lingering on due to reasons best known to the varsity authorities," said the sources.
"Even these contractual lecturers receive meager salaries in violation of the UGC norms," they said.
"The other universities in the state including Jammu University and Kashmir University have been paying Rs 25000 to the Ph.D and NET/SET contractual lecturers every month while colleges pay Rs 18,000. But BGSBU pays only Rs 15,600. So even contractuals don't prefer to join the university", said the sources.
Surprisingly instead of providing permanent faculty to the already established departments, the university has advertised teaching positions for some upcoming centers including Urdu and Centre for Research in Pahari, Gojri and Kashmiri Languages.
Due to casual approach of the varsity administration, few departments were also closed down in recent past including Financial Management.
It may be recalled that the BGSBU was launched, amid a huge publicity campaign, by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed during his first tenure as Chief Minister (2002-2005). Its sad state of affairs mocks at claims of Education Minister Syed Naeem Akhtar Andrabi that the incumbent government would revolutionise education sector in the state.
When contacted by Early Times, Vice-Chancellor Prof. IA Hamal said that the varsity has already advertised all the posts of professors "but the hilly terrain was one obstacle."
"A senior faculty member prefers to work in cities rather than serving in far flung area like Rajouri. So the problem exists not only in BGSBU but in Mata Vaishno Devi University as well and in all other offside campuses of Jammu University including Kathua campus and Bhaderwah campus," he said.
When asked about contractuals running newly opened centers, he said that they had advertised the posts but due to the court stay, the recruitment process was halted.
About the meager salaries paid to contractual lecturers, Prof Hamal admitted that it was an issue and would be taken care of in near future. |
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