The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) wishes to apprise, through the media, the public at large, the civil society and the elected representatives of the people in the parliament that the academic fraternity in the prestigious university is struggling to survive through the worst phase in its history, since its inception, as no regular appointments have been made since 2010 and despite the ever- burgeoning number of new and eligible teachers, close to 4000 teaching positions have been made to lie vacant. Despite repeated letters to the Vice-Chancellor, the matter has not been taken up for any consequential deliberation by him. Teachers have increasingly begun to fear that contractual appointment, through which most departments and academic programmes in the various colleges and centers are being forced to run, is here to stay.
The ill-conceived and dictatorial manner in which Semesterization has been implemented has not only affected teaching-learning adversely, but has also resulted in unstable workload, as a result of which a new trend of hiring and firing teachers between one semester and another has begun. Despite the fact that the UGC has written umpteen letters to the University administration to start appointments in colleges and departments, advertised vacancies are being allowed to lapse and lists of subject experts required to conduct interviews are not being released. The DUTA is worried about the callous manner in which the Vice-chancellor has chosen to put young teachers’ lives on hold, and fears that if this trend continues, many talented teachers may be forced to seek employment in other professions due to the lack of security and dignity that afflicts them, some of whom have been teaching in ad-hoc, temporary or guest capacity for years now.
The plight of the permanent faculty in the University can in no way be described as better. Long due promotions are only taking place sporadically and the 2006 UGC guidelines for filling up reserved vacancies at all three entry levels, viz. Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor, are yet to be implemented. The worst sufferers in this case are teachers who belong to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Castes. Despite the Government’s affirmative policies of Reservation, the hostile lack of will to implement these policies, despite repeated reminders, is shameful and the DUTA condemns the University administration for deliberately dragging its feet on the matter.
It has been years since the 2006 UGC Regulations and Pay Revision for teachers have been implemented. Yet, many glaring anomalies that have been pointed out by the DUTA in its comprehensive reports submitted to the UGC during the last two years continue to be unresolved. The UGC had constituted an Anomalies Rectification Committee under the chairmanship of Prof. Anand Krishnan early this year, and had assured the DUTA that an Interim Report of the Committee would be released by June 2012. This Report is yet to come and teachers who have not got their due have begun to despair. The ambiguities in the Regulations have affected the career advancement of most teachers, who have been forced to stagnate. The extent of demoralization in teachers today is an unprecedented catastrophe and threatens, in its turn, to completely destabilize the academic health of the University.
In the famous adage, Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned. The same can be said of the Government’s attitude towards the functioning of its key institutions and appointees and their apathy towards a University which continues to attract the biggest pool of human resources within the higher education sector in the nation today. Its autonomy has been willy-nilly destroyed by its cavalier and vindictive Vice-Chancellor; now its teachers’ backs are being pushed against the wall to engender a new environment of intellectual submission and professional docility. The DUTA will continue to defend the interests of the teaching community in Delhi University and the academic fraternity at large, and hence issues a public appeal that the University’s contribution to higher learning is recognized and the teachers’ collective dignity be duly restored. On this responsibility, our society’s commitment to knowledge and to the future of our youth stays poised.
The DUTA also wants to make it clear to the authorities concerned, especially the University authorities, that if the situation described above persists, and the authorities continue to evade free and amicable dialogue towards effective resolution of the teachers’ grievances, the DUTA will be forced to resort to direct action that may include indefinite strike, whereof the responsibility will lie squarely with the authorities.
S.D. Siddiqui, Secretary Amar Deo Sharma, President
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