Staff Crunch at Govt Junior Colleges Costs Students Dear

VIJAYAWADA: Government junior colleges in the city are slipping into a crisis due to acute staff shortage in various departments. This has resulted in an increase in the student dropout rate.

There are three junior government colleges at Wynchpet, Krishnalanka and Payakapuram in the city. All of them are being run with only 25 per cent of the required staff on contract basis. The Krishna District Government Junior Lecturers’ Association (KDGJLA) members are demanding that the government immediately recruit the teaching and office staff required in these government colleges in the city.

“The Government Junior College at Payakapuram, which was sanctioned three years ago, does not have a single regular member of staff. The college is being run with contract lecturers and the office staff who are working on deputation. About 250 students are studying in MPC, BiPC, CEC and HEC groups in both Telugu and English media at the college, but there are only eight teaching staff working on contract basis, out of the requirement of 24. Similarly, the remaining two government colleges do not have 75 per cent of the staff required for teaching various subjects. Even the existing staff are taken from other colleges on contract basis,” explained KDGJLA secretary G Narasimha Rao.

As per the rules, every government junior college should have one lecturer for each subject in a group. A junior college offering four groups like MPC, BiPC, CEC, HEC in both English and Telugu media should have 20 lecturers, including the ones for teaching languages. But at these colleges, there are no lecturers to teach any subject for the students of BiPC and CEC groups. This has triggered a student drop-out rate of 20 per cent.

“In the government junior colleges at Payakapuram and Wynchpet, the Botany, Economics and Commerce departments do not have faculty at all. The staff at the Zoology and other departments in various government colleges in the district are being shuffled among the colleges. We approached the officials concerned but to no avail,” he added.

In addition to this, as the classes are being managed by the contract staff from other junior government colleges in the district, the students complain that there is no congenial atmosphere for studies.