Filling up vacancies to be top agenda of Govt-VCs meeting

New Delhi, Sept 25: Filling up of vacant faculty positions, improving quality of research and enhancing student-centric measures are among the issues to be discussed during Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar's meeting with the vice chancellors of central universities next month.

Apart from these, the agenda of Javadekar's first comprehensive meeting with VCs of around 40 central universities, scheduled on October 6 in Varanasi, includes strengthening internal resource generation of these varsities.

"The number of vacancies in central universities is quite large and that is one of the top items on the agenda as it is directly linked to improving the quality of education, which is the government's priority area," a senior official told PTI.

The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry had last December told Parliament that 1,310 posts of professors were vacant in various central universities.

While the ministry is keen on filling the vacancies, the numbers are still quite substantial, the official said, adding that filling up key positions like those of registrars, finance officers and controllers of examination would also be discussed during the meeting.

Several student-centric measures, including checking the status of setting up of complaints committee on gender-based complaints, setting up of SC/ST cells, equal opportunity cells will also figure during the meet to be held at Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

Another area, which is high on the priority during the conference is generation of greater resources for the universities besides government aid.

"While the universities get central assistance, they can raise additional funds through consultancy work. Various ideas will be generated," the official said.

Discussions will also be held focusing on improvement in research works. Among measures that would be looked at include setting up of start up or incubation centres and industry academia link in research.

PTI