NAGPUR, Dec. 14 -- The government has begun taking steps to fill the hundreds of posts of lecturers and assistant professors lying vacant in universities and colleges across the state, said higher and technical education minister Chandrakant Patil at the council on Saturday. Congress member Pragya Satav brought up the large number of vacancies and delays in recruitment. She said that many teaching posts had remained unfilled for years, adversely affecting the quality of higher education. Responding to her concerns, Patil said that a government resolution issued in October 2018, had approved filling up 40%, or 3,580, assistant professor posts in aided colleges, privately run institutions that receive state funding. Of these, 3,086 posts have already been filled, and 494 remain vacant. Patil added that the recruitment process for the remaining posts is currently underway. The minister admitted that, as of October 1, 2017, as many as 12,918 assistant professor posts were vacant in aided, non-government colleges where vacancies were calculated based on student enrolment. He said that the finance department has since approved the appointment of 5,012 assistant professors to posts that fell vacant between 2018 and 2024. Patil informed the house that, through an order issued on August 7, 2019, the government had also approved filling up to 80% of academic vacancies in public universities. The finance department has also been asked to sanction appointments to 85% of academic posts, he added. Nearly 600,000 school teachers in the state are facing uncertainty following a recent Supreme Court ruling that requires them to clear the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) to remain eligible as teachers in the state. At the council, the matter was raised by Congress members Rajesh Rathod, Abhijit Wanjari and Sudhakar Adbale, among others, who said the verdict had put thousands of teachers' jobs at risk. Replying to the debate, minister of state for school education, Pankaj Bhoyar, said that an appeal against the Supreme Court's verdict may not stand in court, but he added that the department would examine how other states have dealt with similar situations....