It is never a happy day for an ad hoc teacher at the Delhi University. While ambiguity surrounds their current reengagement in the colleges they were earlier teaching in, their jobs are never at a secure juncture. According to those teachers, who are part of this uncertain system of ad hoc, their plight is manifold and immeasurable. An ad hoc professor in Rajdhani College said that the Delhi University has a good ad hoc system which has now been severely meddled with.
“This is the only university which helps give jobs to several ad hoc teachers and with brilliant salary. However, the way DU politics has turned out, now for ad hoc teachers, their job is on tenterhooks all the time. While their salaries are good, they get no services, no leaves but extra work,” said the professor who didn’t want to be named because of the fear of not being reengaged. As per the Executive Council guidelines for leaves and medical compensation, ad hoc teachers don’t get anything.
An ad hoc teacher at IP College for Women said, “We get one casual leave in a month and are not allowed to go on any other leave. Ad hoc teachers are not even given increments based on MPhil or PhD like permanent teachers.”
Even workload is severely manipulated and dumped onto ad hoc teachers, said a professor in Delhi College of Arts and Commerce. “We don’t have the liberty to raise issues and protest like permanent teachers. If we don’t do the work we have been given we may not be appointed for the next term. It is like a constant sword on our necks. One wrong move and off we go. We are totally on the mercy of the principals,” said the professor.