Delhi University AADTA teachers protest against "displacement" of ad-hoc faculty

About 150 teachers from Delhi University (DU) held a 12-hour protest from 7 am to 7 pm outside the Arts Faculty on Thursday, June 8, demanding that ad-hoc teachers at the varsity be absorbed. An Executive Council (EC) meeting is being held in this regard today, June 9.

The protest, a hunger strike, was arranged by the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) national-level teachers’ organisation Academic for Action and Development Delhi Teachers’ Association (AADTA). The teachers alleged that ad-hoc teachers were being "displaced" by the university. Explaining, Rajesh Jha, one of the protesters, said, "They are being displaced as the university is appointing new teachers in their places."

Jha added that the current teacher recruitment drive at the varsity was being held after many years. As such, the "displaced" ad-hoc teachers had worked with DU for a long time and contributed to its growth, Jha says. "This time, DU bagged the second spot in the NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) rankings. How would that have been possible without the teachers?" he questions, stating that about 76 per cent of the teachers were working on an ad-hoc basis.

Elaborating further, he says, "The Venkateshwara College had obtained a good NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) score, which was further enhanced in the December 2022 evaluation. How could the college perform better without the teachers' effort? But now DU is throwing them out," he states.

Thus, the teachers feel that the university was treating the ad-hoc faculty unfairly and demanded absorption. Jha mentions that the neighbouring state of Punjab offered regular employment to its ad-hoc teachers. The teachers are also demanding the formation of a Governing Body (GB) including all 28 colleges of DU.