Kakatiya University loses recognition to offer M.Ed course for want of staff

Warangal: With as many as 10 professors retiring from service this year, the Kakatiya University, the second biggest varsity in Telangana State, is going to face severe academic and administrative issues. And it is unlikely to retain the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)’s ‘A’ grade in the coming cycle. Moreover, the very existence of […]

Warangal: With as many as 10 professors retiring from service this year, the Kakatiya University, the second biggest varsity in Telangana State, is going to face severe academic and administrative issues. And it is unlikely to retain the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)’s ‘A’ grade in the coming cycle. Moreover, the very existence of the department of education and the engineering college is under threat. Enhancement of the age for the university teachers in the State universities is appearing to be the only immediate solution.

While the sanctioned regular teachers posts for the KU is 400, only 95 regular teachers including Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors are on the rolls now. Since the education department was left with no regular faculty, National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has recently withdrawn the recognition granted to the Institute of Advanced Study in Education (IASE) of the university for the next academic year (2022-23). In view of this, the KU cannot run the M.Ed. course.

“The last notice was issued to the institute on October 7, 2021. But the varsity management failed to give a suitable reply to the NCTE resulting in losing the recognition,” said a retired Professor. As of now, there is not a single professor or regular teacher in any capacity in the education department. “While a professor retired in December last year, another professor joined a central university. Only one contract teacher and five part-timers are working with the department as of now,” he said.

He also lamented that the NCTE might even withdraw the recognition to the B.Ed. course for want of regular teachers. On the other hand, a professor who is working as the Principal of Engineering College, KU, is going to retire from the service in December this year. “Post his retirement, the engineering college might also lose the recognition as per the AICTE norms” said another professor. In view of this, hiking the retirement age of university teachers from 60 years to 65 years as per UGC guidelines or 60 years to 63 years on par with State Government Employees, retrospectively from March 2021 is the only immediate solution to address this grave issue which is paralyzing the varsity.

“The State government has resolved to recruit the teachers in the universities recently. But it is likely to take much due to technical issues involved in it. Keeping this in view, the State government must consider the enhancement of the retirement age of the university teachers at the earliest,” said a Professor. The absence of regular teachers in the universities in the State may forego obtaining desired rankings in NAAC and NBA accreditation cease to get research and development grants from central agencies like UGC, ICSSR and CSIR forego recognition of professional courses by the regulatory bodies like UGC, AICTE, NCTE and affect the quality of teaching and research. On other hand, quite a few departments in each of the 11 universities in the State are working without even a single regular teacher because of the retirements, and such departments are handled by the part-time teachers. 141 senior professors can be retained if the age of retirement is enhanced to 65 years in the State universities.