Higher Education Minister P. Vishwanathan announced at a press conference on Tuesday that temporary Vice-Chancellors would soon be appointed for all remaining State universities, following the approach already taken in two institutions.
He explained that the DMK government’s previous efforts to appoint VCs had stalled over the past five years due to friction with former Governor R.N. Ravi.
Because disputes regarding the roles of the Chancellor and VCs are currently pending before the Supreme Court, he noted that this interim arrangement will remain in place until the legal matters are resolved.
To ease the administrative burden currently placed on convenor committees managing large numbers of universities, those committees will soon be replaced by temporary VCs.
As an initial step, temporary appointments have already been finalised at Annamalai University and Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, according to Mr. Vishwanathan.
He also promised that university syndicate and senate members would be appointed through a transparent process within the next six months.
Addressing faculty shortages across State colleges—where roughly 9,000 professor positions currently sit vacant—the Minister reiterated that 6,000 lecturer posts announced during the Demands for Grants session would be filled shortly through the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB).
He stated that out of the 42,000 candidates who took the TRB exam in 2022, 27,000 passed and are currently undergoing certificate verification and interviews. Work is already under way to select the first phase of 2,000 candidates.
When questioned about insufficient funding for Madurai Kamaraj University, the Minister responded that the government cannot distribute funds equally to every university, explaining that financial allocations are instead dispersed on a timely basis according to each institution’s specific size and requirements.
Published - October 27, 2026 08:10 pm IST