Kerala to cut down faculty posts in colleges, Tharoor asks Pinarayi Vijayan to revoke order

Congress MP and former union minister Shashi Tharoor has written a letter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan asking him to revoke the order
Shashi Tharoor| Pic: Ashwin Prasath
Shashi Tharoor| Pic: Ashwin Prasath

Expressing disappointment at the Kerala government's new set of rules and regulations regarding the faculty appointments in government-aided colleges, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has sent an email to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, asking him to reconsider the decision. The order released on April 1, says that new posts will be generated with a workload of 16 hours per week. Previously, this used to be 12 hours per week. This will effectively reduce the number of faculty posts.

"At the postgraduate level, the one-hour class was previously regarded as one-and-a-half hours for staff fixation. An 8-hour-post was sanctioned on matters involving single-teacher subjects," reads the letter. Tharoor says that order has created distress among many candidates with strong educational qualifications, as the order has reduced the number of posts. "This unprecedented increase of workload will affect the quality of higher education in the state including research ventures. This order is likely to lead to the loss of over 2,000 posts in various colleges across Kerala," the letter reads.

Protesting the order, Congress' students' wing Kerala Students' Union (KSU) has also started an email campaign. Around 15,000 KSU activists from across Kerala are expected to send out emails to the Chief Minister, as part of this. "The PG faculty have a lot of extra work apart from teaching. So, the previous norm enabled the colleges across Kerala to maintain the quality of education," says KM Abhijith, KSU President. "This will cut down the number of seats and will cut down around 2,000 seats (posts?) across the state. We urge the government to revoke this order at the earliest," he says, The campaign was kickstarted on April 8.

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