By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, March 12, 2020: An Assembly Committee on Higher Education has recommended the state government to stop the opening of new degree colleges in Odisha.

However, the committee, headed by chairperson Bhupinder Singh has allowed the government to open new higher education institutions in the blocks sans degree colleges.

Among other recommendations of the panel, the government can increase the seats in the Plus II colleges in areas where there is no scope for the students to pursue higher studies after completing their Plus II studies.

Considering that there are more than 1000 government and aided degree colleges in the state, the Committee felt need for the creation of 15 additional posts of Regional Director for 13 undivided districts of the state. At present, there are five Regional Directors, which the panel said, is not enough to look into the functioning of these colleges. It also sought priority to the appointment of the principal in all degree colleges.

The Committee recommended for a hike in the salary of the guest lecturers due to the inordinate delay in the recruitment of regular teachers. It also recommended to bring down the minimum teaching experience of the lecturers to 23 years instead of 27 years for promotion to the reader post in non-government colleges,

The other members of the Assembly Committee are Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha, Nityananda Sahu, Debesh Acharya, Simarani Nayak, Sushant Kumar Behera, Bishnubrata Routray, Sunanda Das, Prakash Chandra Majhi, Shankar Oram, Aditya Madhi and Mukesh Kumar Pal.