83% Faculty Posts Lie Vacant at Telugu University in Hyderabad

Suravaram Pratapa Reddy Telugu University in Hyderabad is facing a severe faculty shortage, with 64 out of 77 sanctioned posts—representing 83 per cent—currently lying vacant. According to Higher Education Department records, the university has no regular faculty in its flagship Telugu department and relies on retired teachers re-engaged as academic consultants.

Multiple other departments at the university, including Astrology, Folk Arts, Music, and Linguistics, have operated without professors, associate professors, or assistant professors for several years. Across all departments, the university currently has zero professors, with only 12 assistant professors and one associate professor remaining on its rolls.

The staffing crunch is part of a broader crisis affecting 10 other state universities in Telangana. Osmania University has 74 per cent of its 1,267 sanctioned posts vacant, while Kakatiya University has 332 vacancies out of 409 sanctioned positions (81 per cent). At Palamuru University, 117 out of 136 sanctioned posts remain unfilled.

Due to ongoing retirements without fresh recruitment, the standard 1:3:6 teacher cadre ratio across professor, associate professor, and assistant professor levels has suffered severely. Several departments at Osmania University, including Archaeology, French, and German, are now managed entirely by contractual academic consultants, while departments like Journalism, Sanskrit, Philosophy, Arabic, Islamic Studies, and Kannada are struggling to function.

Former Osmania University Vice Chancellor Prof T Tirupati Rao noted that the declining teacher-student ratio risks damaging university rankings, NAAC grading, research activities, and PhD supervision across the affected institutions.