No extension for faculty, TN universities stare at crisis

CHENNAI: With several state-run universities in Tamil Nadu facing issues without vice chancellors, one more problem has arisen that even a small tenure extension for the faculty members was rejected by the institutions.

At present, 13 state universities are functioning under the Higher Education Department. However, six universities, including the University of Madras, Anna University, Madurai Kamaraj University, Bharathiar University, Tamil Nadu Teachers Education and Annamalai University, have been functioning without a vice-chancellor.

Adding to the woes, a few state-run universities do not have regular registrars, controllers of examinations and finance officers.

With the faculty members in the headless universities having no clue about the appointment of vice chancellors, the professors, who were seeking tenure extension, were rejected by the authorities of the institutions as they do not want to take any ‘risk’ to give further service.

A senior official from the Higher Education Department, seeking anonymity, said that according to the University Grants Commission (UGC) rules, retired professors can be re-employed or their tenures extended, even in the absence of a Vice-Chancellor (V-C), as long as it is following the university's rules and regulations and applicable state laws.

"The extension of the services will also help the students till the post is filled," he said.

Claiming that about 20% of professors in the state-run universities might be on the verge of retirement, he said, "Since more than 50 cases are pending in the high court, the government is finding it difficult to fill the vacancies immediately.”

P Thirunavukkarasu, a retired professor in a government college and vice-chairman, Association of University Teachers (AUT), said that there is a provision to extend the services of the lecturers with certain conditions.

"If a professor's retirement month was June, the tenure could be extended till that year's December," he said, adding, "this was happening in all the government universities".

He also claimed that several cases were pending in the High Court concerning the extension of the professor's tenure.

"Therefore, the management of state-run universities, which is without vice chancellors, will not go ahead to give the extension," he added.

A professor of Anna University, who had recently retired, said that though he had tried to get the service extension, the authorities of the institution have rejected his request citing non-availability of the vice-chancellor.