Vice Chancellors are key to the governance of universities. But nine universities in AP have been running under the rule of in-charges for more than a year. Those who were appointed as VCs during Jaganmohan Reddy’s tenure resigned after the change of government. After that, the government took some time to issue the notification.
Finally, on September 9 last year, it issued a notification for the filling of VC posts for 17 universities. VCs were appointed for Andhra, JNTUK, Yogi Vemana, Vikrama Simhapuri, Rayalaseema, JNTU Anantapur, Padmavati Mahila, Krishna, and Nannaya universities. However, Phaniti Prakash Babu, who came from Hyderabad University and was appointed as the VC of Vemana University, resigned and left when a better opportunity came his way.
As a result, VCs had to be appointed for 9 universities again. These include Acharya Nagarjuna, Sri Krishna Devaraya, JNTU Vizianagaram, Dravida, Urdu, YSR Architecture, Andhra Kesari, Sri Venkateswara, and Vemana Universities. There are criticisms that the governance is flawed due to the lack of regular VCs for key universities.
The UGC formed search committees for Sri Krishna Devaraya, JNTU Vizianagaram, Acharya Nagarjuna, and Dravidian Universities with new nominees. The names recommended by these committees have been received by the government. Meanwhile, the government is planning to announce the names of VCs for all nine universities at once. This is likely to take another two to three months.
In many universities, the members of the governing councils are also those appointed by the YSRCP government. The vice chairmen in the Council of Higher Education are still those appointed by the Jagan government.
The coalition government has set a target of bringing state universities into the top 100 in the world. As part of this, it is believed that if professors working in IITs and NITs are brought in and appointed as VCs, the universities will be made excellent.
In this order, most of the nine universities initially announced were given opportunities to outsiders. With this, the government has decided to appoint VCs to the remaining universities in the same manner. As a result, there is a serious delay in the appointment of VCs.
