File picture of students at a college classroom in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 20: The higher education department has asked colleges to engage more visiting faculties so that students do not suffer because of staff crunch.

“Colleges can appoint additional guest faculties till the staff crunch problem is solved. However, this has to be done keeping in mind the sanctioned strength and the work load,” said Nibedita Jena, directorate of higher education.

“If additional charges are incurred, the department will create a supplementary budget and provide funds,” said Jena adding that the department had a budget of Rs 50 lakh for the guest faculties in colleges.

At present, the guest faculties are being paid Rs 250 for each class for the junior colleges and Rs 350 for degree colleges. This apart, the state government has also proposed to fill up the vacant teaching staff posts in the junior and degree colleges across the state by recruiting lecturers through the Public Service Commission (PSC).

“We are planning to upgrade half of the lecturers in government colleges. For the remaining 50 per cent posts, direct recruitment will be done,” said Jena.

With the last major recruitment drive being done in 1998, number of vacancies in colleges across the state has been continuously rising.

Even the premier BJB Autonomous College is struggling to fill up the vacancies. Its physics, Oriya and Hindi departments are running without a single teacher.

The state, at present, has a total of 2,528 colleges, which include 99 government colleges, 617 aided colleges, 1,000 unaided colleges, 165 block grant colleges, 344 self-financing colleges and 32 other departmental colleges.

Of the 1,818 sanctioned posts in the government degree colleges, 612 posts are lying vacant. Similarly, 279 posts are lying vacant in junior government colleges having 1,023 sanctioned posts.

The staff crunch has also led to a delay in delinking junior colleges from degree colleges. The department cannot go ahead with the plan until it is comfortable with the staff position at both levels.