Financial crunch: Bharathiar University scales down requirement of guest faculty from 81 to 60

Bharathiar University reduces guest faculty requirement due to financial constraints, plans to appoint 60 lecturers for 23 departments.

The Bharathiar University has scaled down its requirement of guest faculty for the current academic year to 60 from 81 for its 23 departments, apparently due to financial constraint.

The requirement of 81 faculty was arrived at by the Dean’s Committee after the start of the 2024-25 academic year, and the approval of the Finance Committee was also obtained.

The Deans’ Committee had arrived at the extent of faculty requirement, factoring in the start of new PG programmes in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science.

However, at a recent meeting of the Finance Committee, a decision to re-apportion faculty to the 23 departments was taken. The Higher Education Secretary’s nod will be obtained and the interview will be conducted in a week’s time, it is learnt.

In all likelihood, the faculty appointed for the remaining few months of this academic year are expected to be retained for the 2025-26 session after the two-month break spanning April-May.

The Finance Committee has also scrapped the earlier plan to allot five guest faculty for the PG Extension Centre in Erode, amid apprehensions raised by the faculty at the centre that the university plans to close it down.

The Higher Education department is learnt to have advised the university to deploy the faculty at the PG Centre in its departments.