HYDERABAD : Despite spending exorbitantly on national notifications for VC posts, the state government sticks to local appointments, ignoring UGC rules and compromising on the quality of education.
The state govern ment has been issuing “nation-wide“ notifications to select candi dates for the post of vice-chancellors of universities, but the fact is that in these regionally chauvinistic times, it cannot select a candidate even from the neighbouring district of the same region, leave alone from any other part of the country.
Huge sum of public money have been wasted in issuing these notifications.The Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education has spent `60 lakh till now for issuing nation-wide notifications which served no purpose.
The intention is good -to attract the best national talent to fill the vice-chancellors posts in our state universities -but the situation on the ground is such that the nation wide hunt is just a formality aimed at meeting the guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC).
The government issued a nation-wide notification in December 2010 to fill up eight VC posts. Seven months on, only five posts have been filled with much difficulty, and all the successful applicants are alumni of the universities they had applied to.
This week the government has again issued a nationwide notification for another 14 VC posts. Going by past experiences, it is doubtful that any candidate from any other state will apply, since not a single applicant from outside the state was chosen last time round.
“No one knows what the government has achieved by issuing nation-wide notifications, when it is actually selecting new VCs on the grounds of local, non-local, caste, political affiliation and other issues. Why are lakhs of rupees of public money being wasted when the government does not have the guts even to consider applicants of other districts within the same region, leave alone other regions within the state and from other states?“ asks Prof. Satyanarayana of Osmania University.
Prof. Satyanarayana himself was professor of chemistry at Osmania University before being appointed its vice-chancellor. About 200 applicants from other regions and other states had applied for the post but the government preferred a person with an OU background and kept in mind the regional sentiment that is strong in that university.
Prof. Mohd. Akbar Ali Khan was selected as VC of Telangana University, Nizamabad, and was head of the commerce department of Osmania University prior to that. OU used to have jurisdiction over Nizamabad, which means that a person from the same university was appointed VC.
Dr P. Prakash, appointed VC of Dr B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, is an alumnus of Osmania and comes from the same region.
Dr K. Narasimha Reddy, who was appointed VC of the Mahatma Gandhi University, Nalgonda, was head of the physics department in OU, and earlier, Nalgonda was part of OU.
Prior to being appointed VC of Kakatiya University, Prof B. Venkata Rathnam was working in the department of commerce and business management in the same university.
There are 34 state-run universities and the Governor of the state appoints the VCs At present there are four vacancies and within a month, 14 more VCs will retire.