Chennai (PTI): Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay has directed the officials to expedite the process of selecting and appointing Vice Chancellors to 15 universities and resolve the long-pending issue of vacancies in teaching positions in the state-run universities, an official said on Tuesday.

Aiming to resolve the problems afflicting the state varsities, Vijay chaired a high-level consultative meeting with Higher Education Minister P Vishwanathan and senior officials at the Secretariat here on Monday.

Vijay discussed the fiscal health of those universities and stressed the need to fill the leadership gaps urgently. He also discussed ways to improve the academic standards of the varsities, according to the official.

The appointment of VCs has always run into rough weather in the past, with the previous Governor R N Ravi rejecting the composition of the VC-search panels recommended by the previous DMK regime, citing it did not conform to the UGC guidelines. The DMK even made a bid to empower the Chief Minister as Chancellor in an effort to curtail the powers of the Governor, who is the Chancellor of state universities, in appointing the VCs.

About 15 out of 22 state universities are currently functioning without full-time VCs.

Academic associations have been urging the newly formed TVK government to immediately fill up the vacancies of over 5,000 teaching posts and 124 principals' posts in 188 government arts and science colleges, saying the prolonged vacancies has been adversely affecting the education of the students.

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This report was published from a syndicated wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.