Vacant teaching posts, empty coffers fetch Lucknow University poor grades

LUCKNOW: Once a sought-after educational institution in the country, Lucknow University has been struggling on various fronts for the past few decades. A ray of hope, though, has emerged with governor and chancellor Anandiben Patel taking personal interest in LU’s revival and directing the state government to help the 100-year-old institution to tide over the crisis.In a four-part series, TOI digs into the issues that have restricted the university from making a mark at the national level.
Lucknow University’s anthropology department is the third oldest in the country where acclaimed academics such as DN Majumdar, Gopal Sharan, and KS Mathur once taught. But that was in the past. Now, the department is in a sad state: functioning with only two permanent faculties — a professor and an assistant professor—despite eight vacancies.
Likewise, six out of 43 departments in the century-old university are operating with single or no faculty. These departments are geography, home science, journalism and mass communication, Sanskrit, Urdu and Jyotirvigyan. In fact, one-third of the total teaching posts out of 517 are lying vacant in key departments like chemistry, physics, mathematics and commerce.

In the absence of permanent faculties, LU has engaged about 200 guest lecturers for various departments.
The crisis may deepen further as many teachers in departments like chemistry and physics are due to retire next year. In fact, four teachers of the zoology department will retire in the next session.
At present, the teacher-student ratio in LU is 1:39 against the 1:20 laid down by the University Grants Commission. In some departments, this ratio is above 1:60. LU has about 75 vacancies for assistant professors, 60 for associate professors and 37 for professors.
“These vacancies came up in the past decade but appointments could not be done. The fear of not scoring well due to shortage of teachers has been a major hurdle for LU to apply to National Assessment and Accreditation Council and National Institutional Ranking Framework,” said a professor.
NAAC grading is based on seven parameters with total 1,000 marks, of which faculty strength is a key factor, particularly in teaching-learning, evaluation and research and innovations and extension.
Fund shortage is another factor that has restricted LU from recruiting teachers. “At present, LU’s annual revenue is Rs 137 crore and expenditure Rs 250 crore. If all the appointments are done, paying salaries would be difficult,” said a retired professor.
Teacher shortage has also driven away many meritorious students away.
“I don’t want to leave Lucknow in the times of coronavirus for higher studies but have no other option. I would have preferred LU had its teaching strength, infrastructure and placement been up to the mark,” said Abhishek Singh.
“Candidates applying for postgraduate and PhD prefer other institutes because faculty crunch in LU hinders guidance,” said MA student Ritika Khanna.
LU teachers, too, are worried. “The university lost maximum marks in 2014 NAAC grading because of huge vacancies in teaching posts and promotions pending for decades. Even if timely promotion is done, it will motivate faculty to deliver 200%,” said LU Teachers’ Association member Vineet Kumar Verma.
Vice-chancellor Prof Alok Kumar Rai told TOI that due to financial crunch, they have not been able to fill all permanent posts. Hence, LU decided to appoint teachers on contract basis for both self-finance and regular courses. “The guest faculty system will be scrapped and money thus saved will be paid to full-time contractual teachers. A special cell has been created to expedite the process of recruitment and promotions,” he added.