Last month, the central government told the parliament that around 80% of posts sanctioned (339 out of 423) in central universities for professors under the OBC category and nearly 83% of posts (120 out of 144) for STs remained vacant. For SCs, 64% (197 out of 308) of all sanctioned posts remained vacant as of June 30, 2025. In the general category, 39% of sanctioned posts (603 out of 1538) of professors were vacant.

For associate professors, around 65% of sanctioned posts (199 out of 307) for STs, 51% (324 out of 632) for SCs and 69% (608 out of 883) for OBCs were vacant. On the other hand, for the general category, only 16% of posts (480 out of 3013) were vacant.

For assistant professors, vacancies were lowest: 23% (544 out of 2382) for OBCs, 15% (109 out of 704) for STs and 14% (190 out of 1370) for SCs. That is, taken together, nearly 26% of the total 18951 sanctioned posts across positions and categories remained vacant.

In other words, the data inform us that in central universities—the best state-funded segment of higher education institutions in the country—there is a glaring crisis of the absence of teachers at two levels: one, the simple absence of an adequate number of qualified, permanent, full-time teachers across institutions; second, even as the central government routinely and loudly claims to protect the interests of marginalised sections, in practice, it blatantly and persistently refuses to appoint enough teachers in........

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