The UGC’s new regulations for college teachers including an increase of 6 hours of work per week (from 18 hours to 24 hours) have stirred the hornets’ nest and acquired political connotations.
While the teachers’ associations have strongly protested the move citing problems being already faced by them like scarcity of teachers due to massive cuts in UGC’s funding, political parties like the Congress and AAP have opposed it saying the regulator’s move will lead to nearly one lakh ad hoc teachers losing their jobs. The political parties also condemned the cut in allocation of funds for higher education by 55 per cent in the Union Budget from Rs 9,315 crore to Rs 4,286 crore.
As per the new regulations the direct teaching hours have been increased to 24 hours per week for Assistant Professor and 22 hours per week for Associate Professor in place of 16 hours and 20 hours for Professor in place of 14 hours per week respectively. If a teacher puts two hours in practical classes in science courses, the regulation will treat it as one hour of teaching.
“18/16/14 hours per week include the lecture/practical and project supervision. Two hours of practical/project supervision tutorial be treated as equivalent to one hour of lecture. Those teachers who supervise the research of five or more, PhD students at a time may be allowed a reduction of two hours per week in direct teaching hours. The six hours per week include the hours spent on tutorials, remedial classes, seminars, administrative responsibilities, innovation and updating of course contents.
“Hours spent on examination duties such as invigilation, question paper setting, valuation of answer scripts and tabulation of results are over and above the prescribed direct teaching hours and are an integral part of overall teaching work load of 40 hours per week,” the guidelines said.
The earlier 16-hour week included the full time spent on practical classes and tutorials. Research activities by teachers in colleges and universities will no longer be mandatory. If an Assistant Professor does not want to participate in research, s/he has to give six hours extra in tutorials every week. Added to the additional workload of two hours, this will mean that an Assistant Professor who does not want to undertake research needs to teach for 24 hours a week.
Under the earlier regulation, a teacher needed to get a certain score from teaching as well as research activities, such as attending conferences and seminars, to be eligible for promotion.
After Teachers’ Associations protest, both Congress and AAP jumped in the fray, saying if implemented, in DU alone, the jobs of 5,000 existing teachers stands jeopardised. “In Delhi University itself, nearly 5,000 posts would be abolished and at all India level more than one lakh teachers working as adhoc would be rendered jobless. The large scale of teachers would lead to complete breakdown of the public funded higher education system. Besides, this would only lead to privatisation of higher education imposing unprecedented financial burden on students and society at large,” said Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken at a Press conference on Wednesday.
“In contravention to the UGC Regulations of 2010, the present amendments dictate a 40-50 per cent increase in the number of hours a teacher is required to teach per week. As a result of this move, approximately 40-50 per cent of the existing teaching jobs will be lost. Tutorials have been made optional and practical devalued by counting only one hour for every two. This will drastically reduce the individual attention that students can get and will lead to a significant lowering of standards,” said Maken.
Delhi Congress’s body INTEC has decided to stage a dharna on May 31 in front of the Ministry of Human Resources & Development.
On the other hand, opposing the latest UGC notification since there is no reason to increase the work load of Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors by six hours each every week, AAP leader said it is extremely shocking that the Central Government has forced the Delhi University teachers to go on a strike at a time when the checking of answer sheets of under graduate classes is going on.
“The latest UGC notification appears to have been brought with the sole intention of not filling up the large number of vacant teaching posts in the colleges of the Delhi University. The reason is clear that the Narendra Modi Government has slashed the Budget for higher education and is now forcing the UGC to take anti-teachers steps by increasing their work load, in place of filling up the existing vacancies of teachers. Conservative estimates show at least 3,000-3,500 ad hoc teachers currently teaching in various DU colleges will lose their jobs if this UGC notification is not withdrawn,” the AAP leader said.
The new regulations also say that students’ feedback on the performance of teachers would be collected for the promotion of the teachers. Some fear the provision might be misused on politically charged campuses if sections of students and teachers differ over ideology.