Bhubaneswar: In order to get financial aid from the University Grants Commission (UGC), Odisha’s Higher Education department has decided to create teaching and non-teaching posts in the Odisha State Open University. For this, it has been decided to create 43 teaching posts and 14 non-teaching posts will be created in the university. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Pradeep Jena recently.
The University Grants Commission mandates that an open university should have at least three faculty members in each department if offering only PG and in the case of both UG and PG, it should have five faculty members.
The faculty members will be selected through OPSC while the non-teaching staff will come through the State Selection Board. The Odisha State Open University Act, 2014, will be changed accordingly for this purpose. In another decision, the state government will help the university by providing a corpus fund of Rs 15 crore per annum for three consecutive years.
After three years, no funds will be provided to the university. The university shall continue to run UG and PG courses with its existing three schools offering nine programmes.
