Andhra Pradesh varsities go on a recruitment spree

Here is good news for aspirants of teaching positions in higher education. Perhaps for the first time, 1,385 vacancies of professors, associate professors and assistant professors are being filled up at once in Andhra Pradesh.

About half-a-dozen state universities, including Andhra University, Sri Venkateswara University, Sri Krishndevaraya University and Dravidian University have already called for applications for varying number of posts in different departments.

Though undivided Andhra Pradesh had 40 public universities besides two premier central universities in Hyderabad, among others, it had lost many of them such as the University of Hyderabad and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) which are located in Hyderabad.

Since bifurcation in 2014, Andhra Pradesh has been focussing on making Amaravati a hub of private universities and has initiated the process for inviting over 10 private universities even as the SRM and VIT have been already functional. Some of them have also recruiting teaching and non-teaching staff.

“Most of the state-funded universities have been suffering from fund crunch and hence placed recruitment on hold for more than five years. As the Government had now approved new recruitment and made financial allocation for the new posts, the process has commenced,’’ a senior official of Department of Higher Education, Government of Andhra Pradesh, told BusinessLine.

Telangana too is in the process of filling up vacant teaching positions in the state universities. It has recently asked the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) to design a common written test for filling university positions the work of which is now on.

Though not mandatory for assistant professor posts, only PhDs are generally considered for assistant professor position in most of the state universities.