Gurgaon: Govt colleges in Haryana are facing a severe administrative and academic staff shortage, with Gurgaon among the affected districts where four government colleges are currently functioning without regular principals.Data obtained through an RTI filed by Haryana Soochna Adhikar Manch shows that 69 of the 185 sanctioned principal posts in govt colleges across the state are vacant, weakening institutional administration and academic planning.Mahendragarh is the worst-affected district, with 14 of its 15 govt colleges operating without regular principals. Other districts facing similar shortages include Fatehabad (10), Jhajjar (7), Palwal (6), Sonipat (5), Gurgaon (4), Hisar (4), Nuh (4), Kaithal (4), Dadri (3), Sirsa (2), Jind (2), Karnal (2), Ambala (1) and Yamunanagar (1).Colleges are also grappling with a major shortage of teaching staff. Of the 8,137 sanctioned assistant professor posts, 4,902—nearly 60%—are vacant. Despite repeated assurances by the state govt over the past two years that recruitment is underway, no fresh appointments have been made so far.Instead, the number of regular assistant professors declined from 3,368 last year to 3,235 this year. Subject-wise data shows large gaps across disciplines, including English (792 of 1,146 posts vacant), Geography (508 of 806), Commerce (486 of 1,034), Chemistry (409 of 583), Mathematics (409 of 704), Hindi (335 of 528), and Computer Science (233 of 476). Punjabi has 44 vacancies out of 57 posts, History 209 of 366, Psychology 130 of 227, and Botany 174 of 226.Several subjects—including Environment, Anthropology, Electronics, Geology, Management, Biology, IT, Microbiology, Statistics and Urdu—do not have a single regular teacher in govt colleges.Students remain the worst affected, with institutions relying heavily on extension lecturers as a temporary measure. While Haryana public service sommission has conducted recruitment tests for some subjects, delays in appointments continue to raise concerns among students and education activists.
