ABSTRACT
The chapter highlights that the teacher selection process is extremely irregular and inefficient. The failure to fill vacancies on a regular basis is causing irreparable damage to the higher education system in Bihar. The government has centralized and decentralized the process of the recruitment of college lecturers in Bihar, but neither strategy has been successful in regularizing the selection process. Universities and colleges are hiring teachers on a contractual or ad hoc basis at a pittance instead of publishing regular vacancies. The power to recruit guest teachers is limited to a period of six months. Hence the arrangement is purely ad hoc. In the promotion of teachers, it was noted that merit and time-bound promotion remained in practice for a long period, and the UGC scheme for promotion that was supposed to be implemented in 1986 in Bihar could not be implemented for over a decade. Over and above that, all the teachers who were appointed by private managed bodies in affiliated colleges, when these were absorbed into the constituent colleges’ service, made claims for promotion. A strong implementation design needs to be built into the policy.
