Telangana: Assistant professors to get extension on contract after 60 years

The decision from the government comes amidst growing demand from the regular faculty members for enhancing their superannuation age from 60 years to 65 years.

Hyderabad: With a large number of existing vacancies, no regular recruitment and several permanent faculty members superannuating every year, the State government asked the universities to continue services of assistant professors on contract beyond 60 years, while the regular faculty retires at 60 years.

Citing direction from the Education department, the Telangana Council of Higher Education wrote to registrars of 12 universities’, including Osmania University (OU), asking them to extend services of assistant professors on contract beyond the age of 60 years based on the “necessity and on case-by-case basis”.

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The decision from the government comes amidst growing demand from the regular faculty members for enhancing their superannuation age from 60 years to 65 years. As per the UGC norms, the superannuation age of the university’s teachers is 65 years. The norm is being followed in centrally funded higher and technical educational institutions in the country.

The retirement age enhancement will aid the universities to retain senior professors most of whom are due for retirement in next six months or one year, aiding mitigate the already existing shortage of teaching staff.

“We are not against extension of contract teaching staff services beyond 60 years. But we have been demanding the government to enhance our superannuation to 65 years as per the UGC norms or till 63 years. The State government employees retire at 61 years but universities’ teachers retire at 60 years only. Apart from regular teaching, enhancing the superannuation age of faculty will help universities in research, funding and NAAC grading,” a senior professor said.

Presently, out of 2,825 teaching posts sanctioned in 11 universities, there are close to 2,000 vacancies. While the OU has a total of 1,267 sanctioned posts in its 53 departments, more than 900 teaching staff positions are vacant. Similarly, Kakatiya University has 86 teachers working against a sanctioned strength of 409 faculty members in 27 departments.

To fill up these vacancies, the previous BRS government brought the Telangana Universities Common Recruitment Board Bill 2022 replacing university-wise recruitment. A decision on the bill, which has been referred by former Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to President, is still awaited.