Every year, as convocation ceremonies conclude and the ceremonial gowns are folded away, a new batch of graduates is released into the world, full of hope, ambition, and academic firepower. Among them are not just job-seekers, but dreamers. Some chase corporate ladders, while others pursue a career in civil service. And then there are those who dream of becoming educators – the chalk-dusted warriors of the classroom, the quiet torchbearers of knowledge. These young scholars move on to postgraduation, qualify through national eligibility tests, and earn their doctorates with the belief that one day, they’ll give lectures from the front of the class instead of taking notes in the back.
But very quickly, idealism collides with reality. After investing years into degrees, research, seminars, teaching internships, and unpaid academic labor, they realize that something critical is missing – the actual post they’ve been preparing for. Where is the Assistant Professor post they trained so long to fill? They look up job portals, visit university websites religiously, and subscribe to government notification alerts. They expect regular academic recruitment cycles like other professional sectors, but instead, they’re met with silence. A long, bureaucratic silence. For years, in many departments, not a single post has been advertised. It’s not because there aren’t students, or because there’s no need for teachers; it’s because the system seems to function on a logic of delay that no one dares to question.
Then slowly, a cruel truth begins to surface: in many places, unless someone retires or gets promoted, the system doesn’t consider it necessary to open the gate. In other words, vacancies don’t arise out of academic necessity or to welcome qualified talent; they arise because someone leaves or moves up. This reactive approach to hiring is not only inefficient but also deeply demoralizing. It creates a bottleneck in a profession that thrives on fresh ideas, dynamic teaching, and continuity of knowledge. It’s as if the administration has decided that new blood is only welcome when old blood either steps aside or climbs a rung higher. Even then, the post is often left in limbo, trapped between paper trails and policy fatigue. Imagine training for the Olympics, but being told you can only run if another athlete dies or retires. That’s the metaphorical situation many academic aspirants find themselves in. A qualified candidate, with publications, teaching experience, and academic passion, can sit unemployed for years simply because the post exists only on paper. The faculty member who currently holds it may have turned 65, but unless their farewell is complete and officially recognized by fourteen different bureaucratic desks, the post remains frozen. In some departments, a single assistant professor post hasn’t been advertised for 15 to 20 years – that’s long enough for a child to grow up, earn a degree, and join the queue of aspirants still waiting.
The absurdity doesn’t stop there. The very institutions that refuse to hire fresh faculty will often complain about “faculty shortage” and “quality decline in education.” Yet, rather than appointing qualified candidates through regular recruitment, many institutions rely heavily on stopgap arrangements. These include hiring temporary, ad hoc, or guest faculty who are often underpaid, lack job security, and are excluded from long-term academic planning. Despite having a pool of well-trained, NET/PhD-qualified candidates ready to serve, regular posts remain unadvertised for years. It’s an open secret that several departments operate in this manner, with positions remaining officially vacant but functionally occupied. Meanwhile, deserving aspirants continue to wait indefinitely, with some aging out of eligibility long before the post they prepared for is ever formally announced.
Then, one day, the news arrives: someone has retired, or been promoted – from Assistant to Associate Professor, from Associate to full Professor, or into an administrative position. A formal farewell or a congratulatory note follows. Soon after, the long-vacant post is finally acknowledged. A recruitment notification may be issued after weeks, sometimes months, and aspirants rush to apply, often treating it as a rare opportunity rather than part of a regular hiring cycle. While some argue that vacancies should naturally arise only after a seat is vacated, this logic falters when one observes that many posts remain unfilled even after retirement or promotion. The real issue is not merely the exit of a faculty member, but whether the institution takes timely action to fill the role. And here lies the greater irony. While aspirants are stuck in an endless loop of anticipation, announcements of “reforms” and “digital transformation” echo from the highest offices. New policies, new rankings, new visions – all rolled out with fanfare. Yet none of these address the basic rot: that recruitment is sluggish, unpredictable, and often treated like a ceremonial affair. Some aspirants joke that by the time the post is advertised, they’ll have enough experience to retire without ever being appointed. Others say their PhD topic has aged into mythology. Some even begin to calculate which senior professor might get promoted next, as if career planning now depends on someone else’s HR file. Behind the jokes is an unspoken truth: that potential is not being denied by competition, but by inactivity. So, does a vacancy only arise when someone retires or gets promoted? Sadly, in many cases, yes. And even then, it drags its feet, entangled in red tape, sluggish approval chains, and bureaucratic slumber. We’ve built a system that treats opportunity not as a necessity, but as a reaction. And this is not just an academic malaise. Across sectors, from education and healthcare to public administration and research, opportunity is rationed, not released. Capable, qualified individuals wait endlessly for systems to respond, instead of being empowered by systems that anticipate need and reward merit. If we are serious about progress, then the system must upgrade – from a passive, vacancy-driven logic to a proactive, merit-based structure. One that doesn’t wait for someone to exit before letting someone in. It should be nurtured, announced regularly, and based on need, not on someone else’s exit. Because when merit is left waiting, what fills the space isn’t excellence – it’s exhaustion. Because when human potential is held hostage by inaction, what fills the space isn’t growth – it’s fatigue, frustration, and the quiet decay of possibility.
Dr. Avothung Ezung
Post-Doctoral Fellow (ICPR)
Dept. of Philosophy
NEHU, Shillong
Saturday, July 26, 2025