Bhubaneswar: With educational institutions facing faculty crunch in the state, the Odisha Government has asked general degree colleges to engage retired teachers as guest faculty members for two academic sessions.
While engaging guest faculty members, preference will be given by the Higher Education department to retired government teachers with good service records in the same college, official sources said on Saturday.
Principal Secretary, Higher Education, Saswat Mishra told principals of general degree colleges that number of guest faculty to be engaged in a particular subject should not exceed the existing vacancies.
This apart, for subjects having no sanctioned post despite student enrolment, guest faculty should be engaged in the teacher student ratio of 1:25 for under-graduate courses and 1:15 for post-graduate courses, sources said.
For the subject being taught by the principal of the college, one extra guest faculty member is allowed. Principals are often unable to take classes in their subjects as they are burdened with administrative work, they said. Visiting faculty in degree colleges are paid Rs 400 to Rs 500 per class.
Many of the over 1,000 government and private degree colleges in the state do not even have regular principals, sources said adding that around 60 per cent of the colleges lack the required number of teachers.
Two years ago, faculty recruitment for degree colleges was put on hold and the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) had advertised for appointment of 606 faculty members in different subjects in government colleges. The process for selection for this is under way.
