The method of short-listing and selection adopted by the Higher Education Department in a recent requisition for recruitment to 606 posts of Lecturers for degree colleges has disappointed jobseekers as it stifles competition and kills meritocracy.

Instead of adopting a transparent method of recruitment based on objective written test and interview for lecturers in non-Government Colleges, the Higher Education Department has adopted career assessment as the selection method despite an advisory by OPSC and GA Department that it is faulty, cumbersome and an injustice to meritorious candidates.

Further, the department is also contemplating to adopt interview as the only method of selection after protests against career assessment from various quarters which raises questions on the transparency and integrity of the whole recruitment process. Time and again, the High Courts and the Supreme Court have frowned upon viva-voce being used as a sole method of recruitment.

Due to the faulty method of short-listing and selection in the previous recruitment held in 2018 for an advertisement in 2017, a very large number of candidates were denied a chance to compete for the advertised post. For example, out of 104 eligible candidates who had applied for 24 posts in English, only 23 candidates were called for viva-voce, making the viva-voce a mere formality. Further, out of those 23 candidates only 18 were recommended for appointment for the 24 advertised posts, thus depriving a large number of candidates of competing for the posts.