With no recruitment of regular teachers in Punjab government colleges since 2003 due to a ban by Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC), over 68 per cent of sanctioned posts in all 48 colleges are lying vacant.

As per the information given by the higher education and languages minister Aruna Chaudhary in reply to a question during the just-concluded budget session of the state Assembly, of the 1,873 sanctioned posts in 48 government colleges, 1,292 (68.98 per cent) are lying vacant.

Thus only, 581 regular college teachers ( 31.01 per cent) are working in the colleges. There are 251 part-time lecturers (13.40 per cent)  and 882 guest faulty lecturers (47.09 per cent)  have been recruited against the 1,292 sanctioned vacant posts.

The vacant posts include the teachers of subjects in all three streams of arts, commerce and science.  For instance, against 110  sanctioned posts of chemistry, 72 are vacant; and of 54 posts in computer science, as many as 51 are vacant.

In several other subjects, including  English (140), economics (80), geography (55), history (75), mathematics (53), physics  (51), political science (86) and  zoology (49), the number of vacant posts is very high.

Even when it comes to the state’s own official language Punjabi, 202 of 246 posts are lying vacant. In 48 colleges across the state, 73,421 regular students are enrolled at present.

The minister said that the last recruitment of college lecturers was held in 2003, which was later annulled by the state government.  Following this, writ petitions have been filed in the HC  and the next hearing on the same is scheduled for 4 April.

Chaudhary said the state government has not put any ban on the recruitment of college cadre and the same was done by the HC.

Interestingly, Punjab government intends to open ten new degree colleges in the next financial year (2018-19) and has sanctioned Rs 30 crore for the same. “If  we aim to achieve the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 32 per cent by 2022, which presently stands at 28.6 (2016-17), we have to strengthen the infrastructure for higher education and improve the access to same,” finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal had said in his budget speech on 24 March.