Higher education in Tripura gasping for breath , no fresh recruitment even as Teacher-student ratio in colleges widens alarmingly

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, April 14, 2026

The higher education in Tripura at the college level has now come on the verge of collapse on account of alarmingly widening gap between students and teachers-what with undeclared policy shift of the government or due to willful deviation from recruitment policy followed so far. According to latest data there are only 507 regular teachers across 26 government general colleges in the state having a total student strength of 72,409. According to University Grants Commission (UGC) guideline on student and teachers ratio the state should have 2413 teachers across all colleges.

The worst sufferer of the lapses of the government in the matter of recruitment of teachers are the students who can not acquire proper lessons and knowledge in the absence of adequate number of teachers. But even as the crisis in higher education is all too obvious to miss the state assembly has passed a university bill to pave the way for launching so-called universities by dubious entities from outside the state that do not even have proper address as per data found in ‘Google’. How these shady entities had pushed their way through is still a mystery at a time when the overall education system in the state reel under acute shortage of teachers and deteriorating infrastructure.

Sources keeping tab on the higher education profile in the state said that shortly after coming to power in the year 2018 the BJP government had cancelled the recruitment process of altogether 182 assistant professors for colleges in the name of transparency. But over the past eight years the government has not been able to resolve the recruitment rules tangle in which the recruitment of college teachers is still stuck. At present classes in colleges are being mostly managed by guest lecturers and many of them do not have requisite qualification. In a recent judgment the high court of Karnataka has laid down the strict conditions that to qualify for appointment as college teacher a candidate must have NET or SLET and Phd degrees.

Now another problem has arisen over fresh recruitment of college teachers as recently the state government has absorbed 21 guest lecturers as assistant professors and now demand is getting strident that another large batch of 178 guest lecturers be similarly absorbed in the posts of assistant professors. “What the state government will do is not clear but if the guest lecturers are absorbed as assistant professors the problem of teacher shortage at the college level may be partially resolved but no body knows what will happen” said sources. They also expressed fear that as part of a conscious policy the BJP government may be trying to outsource even the vital education system to unscrupulous, corrupt and avaricious private parties to save government revenues for giving ‘Rebris and Doles’ to people for winning elections but that will destroy the very fabric of education system in the country.

more news...