Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 6: The Higher Education Department has sent a proposal to enhance the remuneration of contractual teaching faculty engaged on basis of academic arrangement and teaching assistants in the Government Degree Colleges (GDCs) across J&K.
According to sources the Higher Education Department has sent a detailed proposal to the Advisor to the Lieutenant Governor to enhance monthly remuneration of contractual teachers of degree colleges.
Almost going with the spirit of the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines, the Higher Education Department has proposed to enhance the monthly remuneration of academic arrangement to Rs. 50,000, while the teaching assistants are likely to get Rs. 38,000 per month.
Pertinently at present the teaching faculty engaged under academic arrangement gets Rs. 28,000 per month, while teaching assistants are getting Rs. 22,000 per month, which is very low as compared to UGC guidelines as well as the decision of the Supreme Court, which advocated to pay equal pay for equal work, which means to pay basic salary to the teaching faculty. The basic salary of an Assistant Professor of College is around Rs. 57000/ per month.
Sources further disclosed that in the proposal it was also suggested to enhance the tenure of academic arrangement for two years, with extension of one year on the basis of the performance of the candidate.
However sources said that the Advisor to Lieutenant Governor has raised a query and directed the department to explain about the financial resources available with the colleges to pay the teaching faculty engaged on academic arrangement basis. The contractuals are paid their monthly remuneration from the Local Pool Fund of the respective colleges.
“We welcome the move of the Higher Education Department as we are getting a paltry sum.
If we are paid Rs. 50,000 that will be a decent amount for contractuals, who have given precious years of their life in teaching but get peanuts”, a contractual lecturer said, adding that the whole contractual fraternity would be highly thankful to the department as well as the Lieutenant Governor, if same would be approved.
Sources said that though the proposal was forwarded along with the permission to engage teaching faculty on academic arrangements basis in the colleges for the ongoing session but the permission to engage the teaching faculty was granted, while on other issues, the department has been instructed to send details. “The department is collecting details of finances from the colleges and the same will be forwarded to the Advisor”, sources added. |
