E-Paper
Regularisation: Guest faculty of govt colleges to go on indefinite strike
Demanding job regularisation, over 1,000 teachers working as guest faculty at 48 government colleges across Punjab will go on an indefinite strike at their respective
Demanding job regularisation, over 1,000 teachers working as guest faculty at 48 government colleges across Punjab will go on an indefinite strike at their respective colleges from March 12.
Harminder Singh Dimple, president of the Guest Faculty Assistant Professors’ Association, said that many of the teachers are providing services at government colleges since many years but their jobs have not been regularised due to poor policies of the state government.
Presently, these faculty members are working on a salary of ₹21,600. Harminder said that the state had issued a communique on February 19 in which they had said that only the lecturers with at least 10 years of experience at government colleges can apply for regularisation.
The teachers said that the Punjab government has set certain criteria as per which, their appointments are made through a proper channel and advertisement. Also, the appointees should have cleared the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) National Eligibility Test (NET) at the time of their appointment and should not have any court case and legal intervention though the years of their appointments.
“Such orders are completely unjustified as most of the teachers do not fall in this category. The state government is making tall claims of improving standards of higher education at government colleges, but on the other hand, it has been ignoring our genuine demands. As a result, teachers with PhD and MPhil degrees are forced to work on a meagre salary,” the teachers said.
In Punjab, there are 1,873 sanctioned posts of lecturers. While 603 lecturers are regular, 1,000 have been appointed as guest faculty and 270 as part-timers. With less than 50% regular lecturers in government colleges, the guest faculty forms the backbone of these institutions.
