A quarter of faculty positions vacant in state colleges

Of the 2,750 vacancies,1,770 vacancies — 65 percent — are reserved for SC,ST and OBC candidates.

According to the figures available with The Indian Express,hundreds of faculty positions in subjects,which are most sought after,like English,physics,chemistry and history are lying vacant.

While College School Commission (CSC) officials say that vacancies in science faculties are high as the brightest students take up technical education,vacancies in Arts faculties like English,history and Bangla are even greater. There are 313 vacancies in English and 227 in history and 143 in Bangla as compared to 114 in chemistry,164 in mathematics and 149 in physics.

In subjects like computer science,the number of candidates applying for the job is less than the number of vacancies. For instance,at the Calcutta University there are 14 vacancies for computer science while the number of applicants is 13. In West Bengal State University only two persons have applied for nine vacancies.

Similarly in Burdwan University,nine candidates have applied for 13 vacancies and in Vidyasagar University six people have applied for seven vacant posts.

According to the CSC,these vacancies have been piled up over the years in the reserved category.

While inability to find SC/ ST candidates is cited as one of the reasons,another factor is poor performance of students in the State Eligibility Test (SET).

Over the last two years,the number of students passing SET is nearly 2 to 4 per cent,said Himanshu Sekhar,Chairman of the College Service Commission.