Only 1/4th of min required faculty engaged
Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Dec 3: Even after more than three years since its establishment, the School of Architecture in Jammu is still facing teething problems because of highly unprofessional way of running affairs of the institute by Higher Education Department.
The first of its kind School of Architecture in Jammu is not only facing problems like lack of proper infrastructure and administrative staff but also the inadequate faculty even on academic arrangement.
In the last more than three years since its establishment, the J&K Public Service Commission has failed to appoint permanent faculty for the school to run the professional course of Bachelors in Architecture.
The situation can be gauged from the fact that only one fourth of the required faculty strength as per the Council of Architecture norms is presently engaged for the school by the Department of Higher Education.
Only four temporary faculty members have been engaged on academic arrangement for teaching four semesters of the professional course thus playing with career of the students, who are highly disappointed with the current state of affairs. As per the Council of Architecture, minimum 15 faculty members are required for four semesters of Bachelor of Architecture course.
It may be recalled that in the year 2017, the Schools of Architecture were started in Srinagar and Jammu for running professional course of Bachelor in Architecture with lot of hopes and expectations. In Jammu, the school is being run from the premises of Government College of Engineering and Technology (GCET), Chak Bhalwal. Principal GCET is also In-charge Principal of the School of Architecture.
However, because of lackadaisical approach of the higher authorities, no concrete efforts were made during the last three year to mitigate the issues of utmost importance in running this professional course.
Even after completion of more than three and half years of starting the course, it is really unfortunate that first of its kind School of Architecture in Jammu is facing multiple challenges and being run with inadequate faculty on academic arrangement, lack of proper infrastructure, no administrative staff and Principal, said the stakeholders.
The students and other stake holders feel that there is also dire need of appointment of permanent Principal from Architecture background with appropriate administrative staff, who can raise the relevant administrative issues with the higher authorities. “The appointment of adequate permanent faculty has to be taken up with the JKPSC immediately so that the expected academic excellence can be achieved while the infrastructure needs to be created to the required standards laid down by the Council of Architecture,” said the students.
When contacted, Commissioner Secretary Higher Education, Talat Pervez Rahulla admitted that the School of Architecture in Jammu was facing teething problems but he hastened to add that adequate steps were being taken to address the issues.
“The Government has already allotted 50 kanal land for raising the required infrastructure for the school while Rs 16 crores have also been transferred for the same and the tenders for construction work are likely to be floated very soon,” he said.
In respect of faculty, the Commissioner Secretary pointed out that the required numbers of posts were referred to JKPSC in 2018 and the process for recruitment was also initiated but eligible candidates couldn’t be found. “For the time being, till the PSC recruits permanent faculty, we are engaging more number of guest faculty on academic arrangement and advertisement in this regard will be issued soon,” he said.
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