Delhi government-funded DU colleges struggle with severe teacher shortfall

A prolonged shortage of faculty in Delhi University colleges funded by the Delhi government has left hundreds of teaching positions unfilled, raising concerns about the quality and continuity of higher education.

Official figures show that out of 1,508 sanctioned posts across 12 such colleges, only 528 permanent teachers are currently employed, leaving nearly two-thirds of the positions vacant.

The gap has increasingly disrupted classroom teaching and course delivery, forcing colleges to depend heavily on guest lecturers to manage academic schedules.

The affected institutions include DDU College, Maharaja Agrasen College, Keshav Mahavidyalaya, Bhagini Nivedita College, Bhaskaracharya College, Rajguru College, and Aditi Mahavidyalaya, which largely serve students from middle- and lower-income families.

Faculty strength in many of these colleges has remained critically low for years. Teachers’ organizations say the problem has deepened due to retirements, slow recruitment processes, and ad-hoc teachers moving to permanent roles in other universities.

As a result, they estimate that the effective number of vacancies has crossed 1,000.

The pressure has grown with the rollout of the four-year undergraduate program under the National Education Policy.

From the 2025–26 academic year, students have entered their fourth year, significantly increasing teaching requirements. Faculty recruitment, however, continues to be calculated on the earlier three-year structure.

This mismatch has pushed colleges to rely more on temporary staff. In several institutions, guest lecturers now account for 25% to 30% of the teaching workforce, far exceeding the prescribed limit of 10%.

“Colleges are running courses with temporary arrangements. This affects both teaching quality and evaluation,” a senior DU teacher said, requesting anonymity.

Additional strain has come from the introduction of the Economically Weaker Sections quota. Around 3,000 new student seats have been added across Delhi University under EWS, but no corresponding teaching posts have been approved.

Professor Hansraj Suman, chairman of the Forum of Academics for Social Justice, said the staffing shortfall linked to EWS expansion has not been addressed.

“Colleges have admitted more students, but no new teachers have been appointed. This imbalance is unsustainable,” Suman said.

He added that the forum has written to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan seeking the immediate creation of 25% additional teaching posts for EWS admissions.

So far, 46 colleges have submitted enrollment-based data to the university requesting extra faculty positions, while information from 35 colleges is still awaited.

Faculty representatives say that no regular assistant professor appointments have been made in these 12 government-funded colleges for nearly ten years.

The extent of the shortage is evident in college-wise data. Bhagini Nivedita College has 33 permanent teachers against 132 sanctioned posts.

Rajguru College is operating with 22 teachers instead of 134. Keshav Mahavidyalaya has 45 teachers in place against a sanctioned strength of 116. Overall, 980 posts remain vacant across the 12 colleges.

Teachers warn that without immediate recruitment, academic standards, student mentoring, and research activities will suffer further.

For many students, the issue has moved beyond staffing numbers to a more basic concern: whether there are enough qualified teachers to sustain meaningful learning in their classrooms.