New system for guest lecturers? selection

ALLAHABAD UNIVERSITY (AU) and all its constituent colleges will henceforth engage guest lecturers through a newly introduced transparent process of selection only. Under the new initiative, all the departments of the varsity as well as those of the colleges would have guest lecturers who have been selected and recommended by special committees appointed for the purpose and whose names are then duly approved by the AU Vice-Chancellor personally.

AU move to end nepotism

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ALLAHABAD UNIVERSITY (AU) and all its constituent colleges will henceforth engage guest lecturers through a newly introduced transparent process of selection only.

Under the new initiative, all the departments of the varsity as well as those of the colleges would have guest lecturers who have been selected and recommended by special committees appointed for the purpose and whose names are then duly approved by the AU Vice-Chancellor personally.

The move is believed to be an attempt by the varsity to raise the standard of education in the university and its colleges as well as to curb the rampant practice of inviting teachers close to the college management or the department heads as guest lecturers.

Under the new process, all the departments of the AU would now have a committee comprising AU Dean concerned (Arts/ Commerce /Law /Science), head of the department and a senior teacher that would select the teachers to be recommended for being engaged as guest faculty. The list would then go to the VC who would approve it as per his discretion.

Similarly, in all the constituent colleges, guest faculty would be selected by a committee comprising AU Dean concerned (Arts/ Commerce /Law /Science), Principal of the college, head of the department and the senior-most faculty members of the department concerned.

To ensure that UGC guidelines are followed in the payment of remuneration to the guest faculties, it has also been made clear that in both the varsity and the colleges, the guest faculty is to be paid Rs 250 per lecture subject to a maximum of Rs 10,000 per month.

The new system is expected to promote merit and help in the selection of qualified and the best possible faculty members. Earlier, AU department heads held the sole discretion of selecting guest faculty members for their respective departments while in the colleges the management committee members held the sway in this regard.

As a result, sources say, personal relations with the head of the departments as well as management committee members in place of merit was often the criterion of selection for the guest faculty member.

AU Registrar Firdous A Wani has already dispatched letters to the colleges as well as the AU departments informing about the new process being introduced with immediate effect.

On being contacted, AU Vice-Chancellor Prof Rajen Harshe said, "The old process of selection had led to nepotism and favouritism. As a result we were not getting the best possible teachers to come and teach our students. I am confident that the new process would lead to the most qualified teachers being engaged for the benefit of the students both in the university as well as in the colleges."

Prof Harshe said that the new system would help in raising the standards of teaching in all departments be it in the varsity or in the colleges.