THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Administrative Tribunal on Thursday ordered that all UGC norms must be followed while appointing principals in the state's government colleges. Apart from having a PhD degree and 15 years of teaching experience, the college principals were required to possess certain extra qualifications. However, the order comes at a time when the Higher Education department was moving to appoint principals just on the basis of seniority.

At present, the post of principal is vacant in 44 government colleges in the state. Among these, 35 persons have qualifications as per the new guidelines. Several teachers had requested the higher education minister, secretary and chief minister to intervene in the issue. On the other hand, many others supporting seniority-based appointments claim that the new guidelines may be imposed later in 2021.