The continuous muddle between the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Delhi University has left ad hoc teachers in the lurch as several colleges who reengaged ad hoc teachers on the behest of the UGC have removed them from their position within a couple of days. While colleges blamed the absence of clarity in the UGC’s recent letter regarding reengagement, the fate of several ad hoc teachers now hangs in balance as they are left unemployed without notice.
Miranda House topped the list of colleges to fire ad hoc teachers in a day’s time. Almost 10-12 ad hoc teachers were removed on Tuesday after being given the job on Monday. Principal Dr Pratibha Jolly said that there were a complex set of reasons for removing the teachers. “These reasons include changes in workload requirement, roster changes, merit positions after interviews were conducted by departments, time needed to verify all of this information and the UGC notification in this regard,” said Jolly via a text message late evening on Thursday. However, sources in the college say that since the UGC letter mentioned the reengagement of the ad hoc teachers on the opening day of the new academic session, some colleges interpreted the letter to only remain applicable for the day.
Other than Miranda, Delhi College of Arts and Commerce (DCAC) also removed four teachers after reengaging them while IP College for Women has reengaged teachers but sought clarification from the university and UGC on their continuation without sufficient workload. Abhishek Kumar Singh, an ad hoc professor at DCAC, said, “All ad hoc teachers are right now stuck at a very uncertain stage. There has been extreme ambiguity but now it seems like the UGC may intervene.”
According to the data provided by Rajesh Jha, member of the Academic Council, almost 1,000 ad hoc teachers have permanently lost their job. “Before the Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP), approximately 4,000 ad hoc teachers were hired. But with FYUP, this number rose to 1,000 because of BTech courses and the added Honours courses in colleges. Now several colleges have reverted Honours and BTech courses to programme courses. This has straight away cut off around 700 teachers,” he said.
According to a professor at IP College for Women, Sachida Nand Jha, there are two reasons why the teachers have been removed after being re-engaged. “Some colleges had already recalculated their workload according to the new roster. However, after the UGC letter, they had to reengage the old the teachers who were serving as ad hoc till the last serving day of the last semester. Since there was no workload segregated for those teachers they were let go after a day. Secondly, most colleges had already conducted fresh interviews and hired teachers. But again after the UGC directive came, principals asked the old ad hoc teachers to join and then removed them later. This move saved the summer salaries of the ad hoc teachers at least,” said Jha.
At the moment, ad hoc teachers have got some relief because of the inclusion of Environmental Studies as a module. “This is will at least reengage most teachers of life Sciences who have been removed,” said Ruchi Jain, a jobless ad hoc teacher previously teaching in Rajdhani College.