More than 30,000 eligible candidates have applied for 1,242 posts of assistant professor. The Department of College Education had issued a notification to fill the vacancies of assistant professors at the government degree colleges in October 2021.
As per the notification, the entrance exams for the recruitment of assistant professors posts were scheduled for December 2021. The exams were postponed as the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), the nodal agency to conduct the exam, was busy in seat allotment to various professional courses.
According to KEA sources, the highest number of applications were received for Kannada and History subjects. "We cannot give an exact break-up of subject-wise applications received, but the maximum number of applications was received for History and Kannada subjects," said an official from the KEA.
The number of applicants could have gone further up had it not been for compulsory NET/KSET or PhD rule.
In fact, 3,900 posts of Assistant Professors are vacant. But the college education department has received approval only for 1,242 posts from the Finance Department, this year.
Out of 1,242 posts, 145 are left vacant since 2015 due to non-availability of eligible candidates and the remaining 1,097 posts are sanctioned for the current year.
The recruitment pertains to 25 subjects, including Economics (72 posts), Kannada (105), History (108), Political Science (96), Commerce (171), Physics (74), Chemistry (82), Botany (51) and English (34) among others.
The 5% of the sanctioned posts will be filled through the Department’s group 'C' cadre.
In the written test, it is mandatory for the candidates to clear Kannada and English language exams to get the eligibility. "This process of compulsory Kannada and English paper will filter some more candidates," say aspirants.
Also, the candidates will be asked to write descriptive answers in Kannada and English subjects. Other subjects will have only multiple-choice questions and there will be negative (-ve) marking for wrong answers.
The appointments will be made based on the performance of the candidates in the written test. The pay scale will be as per University Grants Commission (UGC) between Rs 57,700 and Rs 1,82,400.
Check out latest videos from DH: