TAMIL NADU: ‘GHOST FACULTY’ SCAM UNCOVERED AT ANNA UNIVERSITY, PROBE ORDERED

A 'ghost faculty' scam has been discovered at Anna University, a top educational institution in Tamil Nadu. This scam involves fake registrations of faculty members. While India Today reported that only 211 people are fulfilling the requirement for 2,000 full-time faculty positions, Times Now reported the number to be 350. ABP could not verify these figures at the time of filing this story. Anna University's website shows 52,500 people registered as faculty members for its affiliated colleges. However, there are actually only 50,500 real faculty members, with 2,000 positions filled by fake registrations.

The Vice Chancellor of Anna University, Dr. R Velraj, stated that this year, the number of ghost faculties in affiliated colleges has increased from 191 in 2023 to 211. The problem came to light when the anti-corruption NGO Arappor Iyakkam examined the faculty member data on the university's website.

During a press briefing, NGO convenor Jayaram Venkatesan explained how several Engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu were allegedly cheating during the affiliation process for the 2023-24 academic year. The NGO's review found that 352 full-time teaching faculty members were listed at various colleges, with some working at as many as 11 institutions at once.

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Engineering colleges must meet certain standards to get approval or recognition from Anna University and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). These standards include having enough buildings, lab equipment, and qualified instructors. The NGO accused various colleges and professors of working together with Anna University and AICTE to cheat and falsely show they met these requirements.

Following the expose,  the state government has set up a high-level committee to look into the ghost faculty scam. This committee, made up of people from the university, the government, and the AICTE, has been asked to submit a report within a week. Furthermore, Anna University has also sent a detailed report to Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi, who serves as the Chancellor of state universities and the higher education department.

2024-07-27T05:02:44Z dg43tfdfdgfd