Paying Rs 400 per lecture to college teachers is unjust?

When students see their teachers protesting on roads and police chasing them, and some of them crying,  what kind of impact this will have on the young boys and girls enrolled in the colleges where these poor teachers teach? For the last many days contractual college teachers, also called contractual lecturers or teaching assistants, are protesting on streets of Srinagar against the Government's decision wherein they would now be paid Rs 400 per lecture instead of monthly consolidated salary of Rs 28000 per month? These aggrieved teachers some days back had gathered at Amar Singh College Srinagar and lodged protest against a Government decision transitioning them from teaching assistants or contractual lecturers to guest faculty roles.

As per media reports a circular issued by the J&K Higher Education Department through Director Colleges J&K on Feb 1^st 2024 says that Guest Faculty shall be engaged by respective Head of the Institutions (Principals) as per the teaching requirement and for each lecture Rs 400 has been fixed as remuneration for the contractual guest faculty / lecturer.

In J&K the contractual lecturers appointed in various degree colleges were paid Rs 28,000 per month and they had been voicing for its enhancement to Rs 50,000 per month like their counterparts get in many states. But it was shocking to see that their remuneration has been slashed to mere Rs 400 per lecture. This is completely unjust and unethical and Govt must revoke this decision forthwith.

However, Nodal Officer of Colleges in Kashmir Division Prof Sheikh Aijaz Bashir, while talking to Greater Kashmir on Thursday said the aspirants misinterpreted the notification issued in this regard by the Directorate of the Colleges J&K. He said that in addition to the permanent faculty, every year J&K Higher Education Department engages candidates on an academic arrangement basis to overcome the need that is generated as per the fresh student enrolment and available vacant posts in different degree colleges.

“J&K government implemented the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 from academic session 2022 and implemented a uniform academic calendar which enabled the department to remove the time lag and ensure that students of J&K were in sync with the national academic calendar.

Accordingly, academic session in colleges of Kashmir division starts from August 1 instead of March of every year. In Jammu division academic session was already starting from mid-July and the need-based faculty on academic arrangement was engaged during the same period, said Prof Sheikh Aijaz Bashir

Rs 400 per lecture ?

For instance a guest faculty from Srinagar who is hired by Govt Degree College Kupwara will have to travel from Srinagar to Kupwara for a lecture and then he or she would be paid Rs 400? There is no clarity on how many classes a guest faculty has to take? The aggrieved persons, most of whom are PhD scholars having qualified NET who spoke to this author, said that authorities are not clear about how many classes a guest faculty will take.

“ It will be max one or two which means we will not get a regular monthly remuneration and the guest faculty isn’t considered as teaching experience while working on contractual basis in a college is considered as experience. Mostly the retired college teachers and people with different academic backgrounds are hired as guest faculty. This policy will ruin our career and it should be revoked “ said Ashfaq Ahmad, a PhD scholar.

Past Injustices

The contractual college teachers have suffered a lot in the past also when there was an elected Govt in J&K. The readers might think that this regime is cruel to them but let me clarify that the career of college contractual or ad hoc teachers, who have now crossed 45 or 50 years of age, was ruined by the previous Governments.

In 2010 Government of J&K came up with a legislation called Jammu & Kashmir Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act, 2010. The aim of this legislation was to provide for regularization of employees in the Government sector who were appointed either on ad hoc, contractual or consolidated basis.

This was in fact the preamble of this law. A year before the Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act was enacted, the J & K Government committed a legal fraud in 2009, by changing the nomenclature of contractual college teachers (lecturers). A new term Academic Arrangement was conceived by our bureaucrats.

The poor contractual college teachers or lecturers never knew what the Government was planning to doom their career? On April 29^th 2010 when the law was passed enabling regularization of the services of all the ad-hoc, contractual and consolidated employees of J&K, it was like a bombshell for the contractual college teachers.

This was a deliberate attempt to bypass these highly educated people who had been serving in J&K Higher Education Department right from the mid 1990’s. Large number of contractual / ad hoc doctors, engineers and other professionals were regularized but the contractual college teachers were bypassed?

Conclusion

Most of the contractual teachers who are now asked to be the guest faculty are highly qualified people most of whom possess PhD. degrees. To reduce their monthly remuneration from Rs 28000 to Rs 400 per lecture is an insult to them. Under the new policy they won’t get more than 15000 per month which is complete injustice.

These professionals have crossed 30 years of age and have to support families. There are many who are in their 40's or 50’s and at this stage if these highly qualified people have to come on roads to protest won’t it impact the students enrolled in our colleges negatively? When they see the future of their teachers so dark, how can these teachers be their role models? The Govt’s policy not only impacts the career of these contractual teachers but it will impact our youth as well, and many of them won’t go for higher education in future .

Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat is an Acumen Fellow. He is Founder and Chairman of J&K Right to Information Movement