Though Department of Higher Education (DHE) is conducting College Chalo Abhiyan and many other campaigns to attract the students towards degree programme but the dearth of permanent principals in colleges has irked the teacher associations and students. Teachers in colleges are demanding for the process of recruitment to get streamlined. Among 536 Government colleges in Madhya Pradesh, there are 95 per cent colleges running under supervision of principal in-charge. There are many prominent colleges in State which are either being supervised by an acting principal or by an officer on special duty. Officials of DHE said that College Chalo Abhiyan is being held to connect maximum number of students with higher education for academic session 2024-25. In this campaign professors are visiting schools to convince the students for continuing their education after school. They are also being explained the detail process of confirming admission in college. Professors are elaborating students about the New Education Policy (NEP) and benefits from Government for taking admission in college.

 

Officials of DHE informed that professors have contacted around three lakh of school students. They have been convinced to continue their education after completing the schooling. DHE has targeted to admit ten lakh students in higher education programme for session 2024-25. Dr Prabhat Pandey, Secretary MP Collegiate Professors Association, said, “It is good that effort is being made to attract the students towards higher education but at the same time there is need to focus on infrastructure and job placement of final year students. There are 536 Government colleges and out of this 95 per cent colleges are running without a permanent principal. At leats there should be permanent principal in colleges who would be running the college with a fixed aim.” He further said that most of the Government colleges have principal in-charge.

 

According to DHE there are 98 vacancies approved for the PG programme of Government colleges and out of this 87 are vacant. There are 435 vacancies approved for the graduation level principal and out of this 422 posts are vacant. There are 704 vacancies approved for the direct professor but unfortunately 457 posts are vacant. Every year around four to five lakh seats remain vacant in colleges after conducting various round of admissions. Process of admission counselling for session 2024-25 would begin from second week of May. While last year counselling was done for 9.90 lakh seats and final admission was done only 5.93 lakh and 3.98 lakh seats remained vacant. In session 2022-23, there were 11,12107 seats in both UG and PG programme and out of this only 528,107 were filled and remaining 58,4000 seats remained vacant.