Promotion, hiring of DU teachers may be delayed
NEW DELHI: The promotion and recruitment of permanent faculty in Delhi University (DU) colleges and departments is likely to get further delayed as it is not on agenda for the December 12 academic council (AC) meeting.
The university has not conducted any fresh recruitment for permanent faculty and initiated promotions of existing members since 2013 and 2010, respectively. Council members said they were surprised to see the agenda list sent by the university administration on Thursday night.
“The agenda list doesn’t include the University Grants Commissions’ (UGC) 2018 service regulations meant for promotion and recruitment of permanent faculty members. The regulations were notified by the UGC in July and they were meant to be adopted within six months,” Pankaj Garg, an AC member, said.
“The administration had constituted a special committee to read the regulations and formulate amendments. Though the committee had submitted its report with the administration on November 28 , it is not there in the agenda list of the AC meeting to be held on Wednesday,” Garg said. The committee has included changes in the UGC 2018 service regulations such as counting ad-hoc service years, giving priority to ad-hoc interviews and implementing professorship in colleges among others, for promotions and recruitment of faculty members in DU.
Garg said the administration has called the council meeting after a gap of 17 months. “The last AC meeting was held in June 2017. However, as per norms, it should be conducted after every six months. If the matter is not included in the AC meeting this time, we cannot say when we will be able to discuss it and pass again,” he said.
Of DU’S 10,500 working faculty, 4,500 are hired on a contractual basis as ad-hoc teachers. Besides, of the 6,000 permanent faculty, the promotions of 3,500 are pending. The academic council members wrote to vice-chancellor (VC) Yogesh Tyagi on Friday, requesting him to add the UGC 2018 service regulations on the agenda list for the meeting.
“The refusal of the university to add the amended ordinance in the AC will delay the adoption of UGC 2018 service regulations and lead to a crisis-like situation in DU…,” the letter said.
Despite several attempts, the vice-chancellor’s office and registrar Tarun Das did not respond to calls and messages for a comment. Several members of the university’s executive council also criticised the move a
“Thousands of teachers are languishing for years without any promotion as the administration had decided not to count ad-hoc experience. But now when the elected committee has decided to add the experience of candidates, the university has not included it in the AC agenda. We want the administration to not only include it on agenda but also to address pending issues of promotions urgently, “said Rajesh Jha, an EC member.