more-in Majority of the staff members of Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU), both teaching and non-teaching, have been disappointed by the recent order of Higher Education Department to stop new recruitments and instead fill vacancies in all government-run higher education institutions with the surplus staff available in Annamalai University (AU). Among various concerns raised by them, the primary reason for the dissatisfaction appeared to be that the shifting of staff from AU would affect their present seniority and career growth. In a letter sent to all universities ten days ago, Higher Education Secretary Sunil Paliwal had pointed out that AU, which had been taken over by the government following years of mismanagement leading to temporary closure in 2012, had 5,753 surplus staff. This included 1,031 teaching staff and 4,722 non-teaching staff. Stating that the government had decided to depute 545 of these teaching staff and 2,643 non-teaching staff to other universities and government-run institutes of higher education, Mr. Paliwal had instructed all universities to immediately stop new recruitments for filling up new or existing vacancies. Commenting on the letter, the chairperson of one of the schools in MKU said that the move might lead to confusions and widespread protests in the universities. “Already, the government had deputed about 370 surplus teaching staff from AU to government colleges, which attracted criticism. Hence, the government is now trying to send them to other universities,” he alleged. A senior faculty member said that those who had spent several years in MKU and other universities might throw their present seniority positions, the main factor considered for promotions, to a toss. “If experienced members from AU are transferred, they might overtake us in seniority,” he said. Pointing out that a large number of non-teaching staff in MKU were engaged on a temporary basis, a senior official from the university said that shifting of non-teaching staff from AU might also lead to job loss for these temporary staff. “Importantly, we all know about the plethora of problems that plagued AU. The fact that there were thousands of surplus staff indicate that a lot of these appointments could be of questionable nature. Hence, what is the guarantee about the quality of these staff?” he asked. An office bearer of Madurai Kamaraj University Faculty Association said that the association was planning to convene the executive committee meeting on Monday to deliberate on strategies to stop this move from getting implemented.

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