BENGALURU: While the Karnataka government boasts of providing quality education for undergraduate and Pre-University College students, guest lecturers at government degree colleges as well as PU colleges continue to suffer due to low salaries, lack of job security and provision for maternity leave, and even unavailability of basic facilities like toilets.
There are over 11,000 guest lecturers in government degree colleges and 4,689 in PU colleges.
Some guest lecturers told the TNIE that their salaries are lower than what lower division clerks and permanent sweepers at the degree and PU colleges.
Arif Karle, a guest lecturer who has over 20 years of experience and has worked in a government degree college in Hassan, explained, “The minimum salary for a PUC guest lecturer is Rs 32,000 for a candidate who is qualified as per UGC norms -- PhD or NET/SLET/KCET with no teaching experience in a government college. Teaching experience in private college does not count. It is Rs 36,000 if you have 10 years of teaching experience with a masters degree or MPhil, and Rs 40,000 for a PhD candidate with teaching experience. This salary is lower compared to the salary of a lower division clerk who draws Rs 43,000, including dearness allowance, medical facilities etc.”
Similarly, the salary of guest lecturers in PU government colleges is lower than what permanent sweepers and attenders get. Rajesh Bhat, a guest lecturer at a PU government college in Bengaluru, said, “Our salaries are Rs 14,000 per month and the number of working hours is 15 per week. However, the minimum salary of permanent sweepers and attenders is Rs 18,000 and maximum depends on their years of service.
To top it, we don’t have job security as every year, the government appoints freshers on the list of guest lecturers. Earlier, teaching experience was given more importance than marks scored by lecturers in academics. Now, lecturers are appointed as guest faculty every year based on highest marks scored in academics.” Dr R Keshavan, former dean at the department of Science and Tech, Mysore University, who has mentioned the low salaries of guest lecturers in comparison to permanent sweepers and lower division clerks in his book titled India is Crumbling under its Policies and Corruption, said that implementation of the 7th or 8th Pay Commission would leave guest lecturers without salaries, unless the government cuts 25 per cent of salaries of government employees.
Not only salary, the state government has made it mandatory for guest lecturers also to follow UGC norms in terms of qualification. Sunitha S, president, All India College and University Teachers Association- Non Regular (AICUTA-NR), said, “Making these norms mandatory for us has added to our woes. As per the earlier UGC norms, a candidate who got MPhil degree on or before July 11, 2009, would be exempt from NET for the appointment of assistant professors. Now, UGC has discontinued MPhil with PhD as mandatory. We have been working for 25 years, these norms shouldn’t apply to us unless our jobs are regularised or treated as state government employees until the age of 60, like they have done in West Bengal.”
She added, “Once in five years, if UGC keeps changing rules, many of us will be unemployed. On the basis of MPhil qualification, 2,800 lecturer jobs were regularised a few years ago. Of these, 881 lecturers are working in 432 government colleges as professors and associate professors. They are paid over Rs 1.5 lakh salary. However, our MPhil qualification was not even considered. Why are UGC norms not applied to these lecturers? Besides, 493 principals in 432 colleges have only masters degree, including MSc, MCom, and are drawing salaries of Rs 2 lakh, as per UGC norms. These people were recruited at the same time when we started working.”
The story is reported by Rashmi Patil for The New Indian Express
