Bhubaneswar, April 23: Decks have been cleared for the appointment of faculty members at various junior and degree colleges of the state. The finance department has given its nod to the proposal to fill 553 teacher vacancies.

The department today announced that vacancies would be filled through the public service commission and advertisements would be brought out soon. The selection would be on the basis of written and oral tests.

For degree colleges, NET qualified and PhD candidates will be considered eligible.

Teachers in the junior colleges will be appointed for 19 departments, including anthropology, botany, chemistry, economics, English, geology, physics, political science, geography, Hindi, history, home science, maths and Odia.

There will be 272 appointments in junior colleges. Similarly, 281 candidates will be selected for degree colleges in Hindi, library science, philosophy, Sanskrit, physics, political science, psychology, computer science, zoology, geology, commerce and botany. The recruitment process will be completed by September.

The announcement has brought a sigh of relief to many colleges, which are struggling with acute staff crunch. The department had earlier decided to shift at least 400 lecturers from Plus Two to Plus Three colleges.

Last week, the department sanctioned 161 posts of teachers at six government-run universities. These included 99 lecturers, 31 professors and 31 readers posts.

The move will help fill vacancies at Ravenshaw University, Utkal, Fakir Mohan University, Shree Jagannath Sanskrit Viswavidyalya, Berhampur University and North Odisha University.

Of these, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, will have 60 teaching posts while Utkal University has been sanctioned 51. Similarly, Berhampur University and North Odisha University have been given permission to fill up of 15 teaching posts each and Fakir Mohan University was sanctioned 11 posts.

BJB college principal Suresh Patnaik said: “The decision to fill the posts was taken at a stage when the education system had almost reached a comatose state. However, the government should fill the vacancies immediately.”