MHRD amends regulation fixing teaching hours

NEW DELHI: The union ministry of human resource has announced changes in a UGC regulation that had increased the working hours of university teachers.

NEW DELHI: The union ministry of human resource has announced changes in a UGC regulation that had increased the working hours of university teachers.

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The 3rd regulation announced by the University Grants Commission (UGC) had mandated that the assistant professors will have to work 16-24 hours per week and associate professors 22 hours per week. The earlier mandated time for assistant professors was 16 hours and 14 hours for associate professors.

The teachers had been protesting against the regulation as it had increased their workload which could have led to retrenchment of ad-hoc teachers. In protest, DU teachers have boycotted the evaluation process. Thursday was the third day of the boycott.

Though the MHRD said that there will be no change in the teaching-learning hours but teachers say the definition of direct teaching hours have been convoluted. The ministry defines teaching hours as 40 hours for 180 weeks.

Teachers said issuing statements will not address the issue but the gover nment should withdraw the UGC gazette notification.