The decision of the state government to withdraw the permission it had granted to the Goa University (GU) for relaxing certain criteria while appointing lecturers, may serve the cause of Goenkarponn, since the criteria related to a mandatory 15 year domicile and knowledge of Konkani.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said in the Assembly on Friday that government has communicated to the concerned to seek another permission wherein the criteria are not compromised.
But having done so, the government needs to seriously and effectively tackle the crippling problem of the university, the shortage of 44% of its staff, with another 30 to 40 staff members due to retire in the next five years. If an adequate number of professors, associate professors and assistant professors are not found among domiciles of 15 years with a knowledge of Konkani, even if the latter two are picked and allowed to grow into full-fledged professors, the University will have no option but to stop functioning.
The need to preserve the essence of its Goan character, the two criterion deserve to be there. At the same time a blanket imposition of the criteria without any flexibility, becomes counter-productive. If GU is to be preserved as a centre of excellence, it needs not only adequate professors, associate professors and assistant professors, but the best ones.
In 2014-15,the University had first asked for this relaxation. Even then, of the 70 positions advertised, the right picks of teachers were found and recruited for only 12 posts.
As the Chief Minister said, “the government had agreed to relax the criteria subject to ‘if and only if’ local eligible candidates are not available. It then clarified that if there was no local eligible candidate, the GU should take clearance on a case-to-case basis from the State government to relax these criteria”
This decision seemed fair, but apparently the GU has flouted these rules by advertising for the recruitments under the relaxed criteria without specifically seeking permission from the state on the case to case basis. This is the inference drawn from what was said. But perhaps there is also a case for getting GU to stringently follow the conditions under which the relaxation was granted, rather than the withdrawal of the relaxations altogether. The bottom line is that there cannot be any compromise on the basic criteria that all attempts to fill the vacancies with Goan talent must be exhausted. And yet when these options are exhausted, shouldn’t we look beyond to get the best available talent for those positions, which will otherwise be vacant.
The introspection should be along the lines of whether keeping so many positions vacant because there are no domiciles or Konkani literate, will help the university function and attract students.
The University is, in any case is fighting to prevent its national tanking slip slide further. It already has seen a slump from 22 to 64 and it can’t really afford to let the 44% vacancy figure to shoot any further.
Right now a temporary relaxation, only after satisfying that there is absolutely no possibility of the position getting filled by a local applicant, will not come in the way of ensuring that outsiders do not fill our universities. We need to have more courses, more subjects and streams. Other academic expansion plans can happen only if there is adequate or surplus teaching staff.
Therefore this decision of withdrawing the relaxation of criteria, and that too after the first option of selecting domiciles with the knowledge of Konkani, is exhausted, deserves re-consideration and introspection. This needs to be done by all parties with a clear min after consulting all stakeholders which includes faculty and students.
