PANJIM: The Faculty Recharge Programme of the University Grants Commission (UGC) has come as a big relief for Goa University (GU) as it has been supplementing the teaching requirement. In the recent past, GU received two assistant professors in the Department of Physics while two more will soon be inducted in the Department of Life Sciences.
The NAAC A Grade university has been reeling under a shortage of professors in some departments. To end this crisis here and at other select universities, UGC launched the programme, under which reputed and highly-trained lecturers and professors working at different institutes across the world are appointed in Indian universities.
“Some teaching vacancies in the university are not filled and that includes non-approval of appointments,” a GU official told Herald. Only a few select universities across the country have been fortunate to be included in this category. GU is one of them.
“UGC identified GU to supplement teaching requirement. We received two assistant professors in the physics department. Both had completed their PhD in IIT and were sent for training abroad. They were subsequently included in the teaching faculty at universities in US and UK and are now with us,” GU Registrar V P Kamat said. The assistant professors are Dr Sudhir Cherukulappurath and Dr Bholanath Pahari.
The appointments are for five years and UCG takes care of the salaries and other allowances. GU provides them accommodation at its residential premises, for which a monthly rent is deducted.
Explaining the appointment procedure, Kamat said UGC first screens the applications of the selected teaching faculty members employed at reputed colleges in the country and abroad. Not all are alumni of GU. They hail from different parts of India and are alumni of different institutions.
Another GU official explained the applications go through UCG’s evaluation assessment. “The names are shortlisted and later finalised after a thorough selection process. The selected ones are then given a choice of which universities (recommended by UGC) they would prefer to teach,” he said. Four assistant professors opted to teach in Goa.
