Many prominent and sought after colleges of Delhi University are still being run by an ‘acting head’ instead of an official Principal.
University officials have stated that the process of hiring principals has been fastened in such a manner that at least 27 colleges of the University have an official Principal before the beginning of the new academic session.
Till now some of the most prestigious colleges of Delhi University had an acting head at the apex of their governing body instead of being appointed an official Principal.North Campus colleges like Shri Ram College of Commerce,Hindu College,Ramjas College,Kirori Mal College along with many off campus colleges such as Motilal Nehru College,Deshbandhu College and Rajdhani College were operating under an acting Principal .
Dean of Colleges,Mr. Devesh Sinha recently told India Today that “University officials are conducting interviews for hiring principals till late every day and the process of recruitment has been given the utmost priority to the colleges “.
To make the process hassle free the university has created an online portal where the interested applicants can fill the form for applying with more than one college instead of filling the form by visiting different colleges.
The acting Principals in these colleges were appointed on a temporary basis for a period of 6 months post which these positions were to be filled by official Principals or the term is extended.Many colleges lacked governing bodies because of which the process of recruitment was getting stalled year after year.
One of the key issues regarding having an acting Principal was that the delay in appointing Principals was also causing a delay in appointing permanent faculty members and thousands of teachers were being forced to work on an ad-hoc basis without benefits and job security.
It is about time that the University takes this matter seriously and focuses on speeding up the recruitment and selection phase to ensure all the remaining colleges have an established governing body and an official Principal.