Mumbai: Interviews for the recruitment of 5,012 assistant professors in Maharashtra’s aided senior colleges will now have to be recorded on CCTV, with the footage preserved for at least a year, as the state govt tightens oversight of the hiring process.Fresh guidelines issued by govt place greater responsibility on universities, colleges and selection committees to ensure transparency in appointments to non-govt aided senior colleges affiliated with public universities.Colleges will have to publish the criteria used to shortlist applicants and the list of shortlisted candidates on their websites. Details of candidates called for interviews, along with the marks awarded during shortlisting, will also have to be submitted online to the affiliating university.Universities have been given a larger supervisory role. They will have to verify whether the qualifications mentioned in recruitment advertisements conform to University Grants Commission (UGC) norms. Their backward class cells will also have to check whether reservation provisions have been correctly applied.The university will prescribe the criteria for awarding marks during interviews, and colleges will have to follow the prescribed marking format. Before approving the final selection list, the university must verify that interviews were conducted according to these norms and that selected candidates meet the prescribed eligibility criteria.Only after university approval can the final selection list be published on the college website.A key provision makes CCTV recording of the entire interview process compulsory. “The footage must be treated as a confidential record and retained for at least one year from the date of the interview. If any complaint, objection, inquiry, court case or statutory proceeding relating to the recruitment is pending, the recording cannot be destroyed and must be preserved until the matter is disposed of,” the GR said.Teachers’ organisations have pointed out that the GR does not prescribe a clear deadline for completing the exercise.“Prolonged recruitment delays cause hardship to thousands of NET/SET-qualified candidates, but students are the ultimate sufferers because vacancies worsen the faculty-student ratio. This also affects institutional performance in NIRF and QS rankings. All approved vacancies should be filled within three months,” said Prof Kushal Mude, national convener, All India NET and SET Teachers Organization.Mude pointed out that Maharashtra Public Service Commission had advertised assistant professor recruitment in 2023, but interviews in several subjects were still pending. Several universities, he said, were also conducting interviews for vacancies dating back to 2021.
