Verification of certificates for Plus Three admissions on at Kamala Nehru Women’s College in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, July 16: Shortage of teaching staff in the physics department of BJB (Autonomous) College has put its authorities in a spot of bother even as it has witnessed a rise in students’ application forms for fresh admission this year.

The department has been functioning without any teacher for the past four months, despite several reminders from the college authorities to the state government regarding the vacancies. Just two retired government teachers, who take classes as guest lecturers, and one contractual faculty member, who is also an alumnus of the college, teach 144 students of the department.

“We are forced to drop 19 out of the 125 classes every week as there are no teachers,” said head of chemistry department Hrusikesh Mishra, who has also been given the additional charge of heading the physics department.

“However, I don’t have the requisite qualifications to handle the physics department. Even in the chemistry department, there are only three teachers for the seven sanctioned posts,” he added.

The Hindi and Sanskrit departments of the college are also running without any teachers.

College principal Suresh Pattnaik said the higher education department was aware of the problem but had not taken any steps to fill up the vacancies. “The honorarium of Rs 350 per class is too meagre to attract any guest lecturer,” he said, adding, “The college has produced many good students in the past. The government should ensure that its reputation is not hampered because of lack of teachers.”

Puneet, a second-year student of physics, said: “The government says it is against private coaching. But, it cannot even fill up the vacancies in good colleges of the city. Students come here from distant places everyday just to be told that classes have been suspended,” said.

On the other hand, admissions into degree colleges that commenced here today saw an increasing number of meritorious students taking admission into basic science courses such as physics, chemistry and biology in BJB (Autonomous) College.

“It is heartening to see that students with good marks are seeking admission for general streams instead of going for technical education. That is why the cut-off mark was increased by 20 per cent this year,” said Pattnaik.

Medical counselling

Online registration and choice filling for medical aspirants under the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE)-2012, will start from tomorrow and continue till July 22.

Document verification, choice locking and payment of part admission fee can be done from July 19 to 22 at four nodal centres in Bhubaneswar — College of Engineering and Technology, Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology, BJB (Autonomous) College, and International Institute of Information Technology. The provisional allotment list will be out on July 26.

Engineering aspirants can expect the list of first round of seat allotment on July 23. Document verification, choice locking and payment of part admission fee for these candidates concluded today. They can withdraw the fee from July 24 to 29 and modify their choices of colleges and streams by July 28.