T.N. Open University faculty withdraw strike after V-C’s assurance

The faculty members of Tamil Nadu Open University on Wednesday (July 2, 2025) evening went on a flash strike demanding an end to their deployment to other government colleges, besides other grievances. However, they decided to call it off within a few hours after an assurance from the Vice Chancellor that their grievances would be looked into.

The faculty members said that the university has 32 departments in Arts, Sciences, Management, Scoial Sciences, and Computer Science but has a total strength of 36 faculty members only. It offers at least 15 undergraduate and 15 post-graduate courses, besides other vocational courses, and currently has nearly 35,000 students enrolled into different programmes.

The deployment of faculty members to other government colleges would leave the respective departments without any faculty. Besides, a few faculty members were transferred to regional centres, which were largely an administrative postings, a year ago and their respective departments fell vacant. The striking members wanted their colleagues to be transferred back to their parent departments.

The Vice-Chancellor of TNOU, S. Arumugam, assured the striking members that their grievances would be looked into and invited them to a meeting on Monday. Later, Prof. Arumugam told The Hindu over the phone that the modalities of the deployment will be worked out in consultation with the faculty members and the government before implementation.