Gaya: The Magadh University budget document, 2018, has revealed that 1,681 of the 3,093 teaching posts in the varsity's postgraduate departments, 44 constituent and four government-funded minority colleges are vacant.

The number of working teachers is just 1,412.

The strength of non-teaching working employees is slightly better, at 2,317 against 3,300 sanctioned posts.

The vacancies have led to pensioners (there are 4,103 of them) outnumbering regular employees (3,729 teachers and non-teaching staff) on the varsity payroll.

According to MU Teachers' Association former president Sunil Singh, the balance will further tilt in favour of pensioners as about 150 employees reach the age of superannuation every year.

The average age of MU teachers is estimated to be over 55 years.

The scenario, according to sources in the education department, is unlikely to change in the near future as a separate service commission for recruitment of college teachers is yet to be formed and the government has already banned direct recruitment of non-teaching employees and asked the universities to go for outsourcing. Outsourcing is yet to be executed owing to stiff opposition from the non-teaching employees' union.

The 128 teachers conditionally appointed in 2003 continue to be haunted by the ghost of the ongoing vigilance inquiry into alleged bungling in appointments.

Then vice-chancellor Abhimanyu Singh is believed to have been pressured into making the appointments and to protect himself, he subjected the appointments to the final outcome of the vigilance inquiry.

A sizeable number of recently appointed NET-qualified assistant professors, according to Federation of University Teachers' Associations of Bihar president Kanhaiya Bahadur Sinha, are looking for jobs outside the state owing to irregular salary payment.

The last pay packet received by MU employees was for December 2017. Most new appointees are from outside the state and the Biharis who managed to get teaching jobs in MU have received higher education outside the state. The number of students from state universities clearing the NET is minuscule, especially in subjects like physics, chemistry, mathematics, botany and zoology.