Fill vacancies in colleges, S Ramadoss tells Tamil Nadu government

Chennai: PMK founder Dr S. Ramadoss on Friday came down heavily on the state government for large number of vacancies in the posts of principals and senior faculty in the government arts and science colleges in the state.

In a statement issued here, he said of the 87 governments arts and science colleges in the state, 46 colleges do not have full time principals. The functioning of the government colleges has come to complete standstill affecting students’ education, he alleged.

“In the absence of full time college principals, in-charge principals have been appointed in their place. But they could only do some ordinary works like processing the leave letters of the faculty. In charge principal cannot carry out any college development or administrative work and they do not even have power to carry out basic facilities work,” he said.

Stating that filling of the vacant principal posts is not a difficult task, Dr Ramadoss said they were appointed on the basis of seniority. “All principals can be appointed in a day itself as they seniority lists are readily available. Besides, the college principals and faculty retire only during the month of May every year. So they will know who will retire and new principal can be appointed in advance itself,” he said, noting that 17 principal posts are lying vacant for over a year and this year another 29 post fell vacant.

Ironically, state higher education minister’s home turf Dharmapuri zone has 13 government colleges of which nine college principal posts are lying vacant.
He said as many as 2,000 out of the total 6,000 teaching faculty posts are remaining vacant.

“In stead of filling the vacant posts, the government has appointed 1,600 honorary lecturers who have been seeking regularisation for a long time. He also noted that vice chancellor posts in three universities and higher education secretary posts too lying vacant.