No qualified teachers, principals in Thiruvalluvar univ colleges: RTI info

A Right to Information (RTI) petition filed by the president of its employee union has revealed that English teachers in as many as 71 out of the 124 affiliated colleges were not competent to teach the subject, while another 40 colleges do not have qualified teachers for Tamil. 

The RTI response given by the University has also acknowledged that 80 of the affiliated colleges (over 60 per cent) are headed by those who do not meet the criteria to be appointed as principals.  

According to Thiruvalluvar University Employees Union (TUEU) honorary president I Elangovan, who filed the RTI petition, the findings revealed the abysmal depth to which quality has deteriorated in the university’s affiliated colleges. He said the principals were to meet all the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines, including the mandatorily norm that they should hold a PhD degree, while the teaching staff must have either cleared NET or SET, apart from meeting other requirements.

Stating that he was planning to file a contempt petition against both the university and the UGC, Elangovan said, “I filed three Public Interest Litigation cases in the Madras High Court between 2014 and 2016, following which the court ordered the UGC to monitor the situation in Thiruvalluvar University and ensure that evaluation of answer scripts be undertaken only by qualified staff.” 

“However, this ruling has not been followed. I am going to file a contempt petition against the UGC for disregarding the court orders.” 

When DTNext contacted the university administration regarding the RTI revelations, a senior official admitted that the information furnished was true. “A similar situation exists in almost all other state universities in TN,” the official said. 

He then shot back at Elangovan by stating that the latter failed to raise the issue when he was a syndicate member for three years. However, Registrar V Peruvazhuthi said, “All university posts were filled up as per UGC guidelines and only after applications were called for through advertisements in the press. The posts were filled by duly constituted committees and we have records to prove that nothing is amiss.” 

Yet, he was unable to reply about the several lapses revealed in the RTI.