The guest lecturers in Mysuru who boycotted classes demanding the government to regularise their services and withdraw the notification called for the recruitment to the assistant professor posts in degree colleges, sold snacks in the Deputy Commissioner's office premises drawing the attention of the public. They said that the guest lecturers will stage protests in a novel manner till their services are regularised and regretted that their long-pending demands were not met even after they boycotted classes from the fourth night.
There are 14,300 guest faculty working in 430-degree colleges on top of 7,000 permanent teachers to teach 5.5 lakh students. The boycott of classes has affected students as they are heavily dependent on guest faculty. "How can the students write an examination when the syllabus is not covered?" asked Anand, a striking teacher. They also criticised the government for imposing National Education Policy without any preparations or with the full-pledged syllabus.
Former MLA MK Somashekar, KPCC spokesperson M Lakshmana, Manjula Manasa and others extended support to guest lecturers' protest. Meanwhile, on the other side, hundreds of students protested against not conducting classes in colleges. The students who congregated in front of the Deputy Commissioner's office said that there are no classes held for two weeks following the protest by the guest faculty. The students said that they come to college hoping that there will be classes but return without classes. Many students had to spend the whole day striking as permanent faculty take classes late in the afternoon and feared that this would affect their academic performance. There are similar complaints from students of Maharaja, Yuvaraja, Maharani and colleges in taluk headquarters and rural areas.
