More than half of the faculty members of engineering colleges, who gave the Faculty Eligibility Test (FET), that was conducted by JNTU-Hyderabad in August, failed.
Majority of them are assistant professors in engineering colleges. An FET qualification is mandatory to be appointed as faculty in engineering colleges.
Of the 2,580 who gave the test, only 1,124 passed in spite of the qualifying marks being only 40 per cent for OCs and 30 per cent for reserved category candidates.
Of the qualified candidates, 421 were from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the rest were from other categories.
This sorry state of affairs has once again exposed the appointments of “ineligible faculty” by engineering, pharmacy, MBA and MCA colleges under the jurisdiction of JNTU-Hyderabad.
Last year, of the 5,300 candidates who appeared for the exam, only 1,500 could clear it.
The exams were held separately for 18 subjects for 120 marks each and many assistant professors who have been teaching engineering students for several years failed.
While 40 marks were allotted to test “teaching aptitudes”, the remaining 80 were for assessing the candidates’ knowledge in their specified subjects.
Only those who have completed M.Tech, M.E or are First Class pass outs of B.Tech or BE can apply for the exam. Nearly 350 engineering and 100 pharmacy colleges are affiliated to JNTU-Hyderabad and there have been several complaints against these colleges for recruiting “ineligible faculty”.
Source : DC
