Shortage of trained teachers is a perennial problem in almost all education sectors in India. It is no different in the University of Delhi, one of the premier institutions in the country, that has been reeling under an acute shortage of permanent staff for years now.
But the situation is set to worsen as the government of Delhi has imposed a freeze on fresh appointments of teachers. The Arvind Kejriwal government took this decision last week to crack down on the 28 colleges it funds partially or fully, asking them to form governing bodies with representatives from the government before resuming appointments.
Predictably, the decision has not gone down well. Some teacher groups and the Bharatiya Janata Party said the government was “playing a game to appoint its own teachers”. The Indian Express quoted Delhi BJP President Satish Upadhyay as saying that the decision was part of a "game by the new government to appoint its own recommended teachers.”
Others from the teaching fraternity were more scathing. “This move in Delhi government shall inordinately delay the regularisation of at least 2000 young ad hoc teachers,” Inder Mohan Kapahy, a professor at DU and a founding member of National Democratic Teachers Front, wrote on his Facebook page. “This ban shall continue till AAP sponsored GBs (governing bodies) are installed in these colleges. This is condemnable since 5 members truncated GBs are fully and constitutionally competent to govern colleges in all aspects,” he added.
Ad hoc measures
The university has been dealing with a persistent shortage of permanent teaching staff as an “unofficial freeze” was placed on regularising ad-hoc teachers many years ago. “Hardly any permanent appointment has been made in the university in the last five years or so,” said Abha Dev Habib, a faculty member of Delhi University’s executive council.
More than 5,000 teachers in the university are on non-permanent basis, which means that their contracts have to be renewed every four months. According to Habib, the constant hunt by colleges for teachers to teach the numerous courses hurts the education system in the longer run as teaching becomes an unattractive option for aspiring teachers and students lose out on quality education.
“Most of the teachers are out looking for jobs after every semester,” said Habib. “Sometimes they are hired and sometimes they aren't, depending on the course requirements for faculty in various colleges.”
It doesn't mean that there are no immediate effects of depending on ad-hoc teachers. What this creates, however, is a situation where teachers are unsure of their jobs and students are unsure if they will get to study the subjects they choose.
The proposed credit based choice system has come on the heels of the four year undergraduate programme guidelines issued by the University two years back which has made it look like a mere repackaging of the old four year system into a three year format. After facing wide spread protests from students of multiple central universities last month, it continues to hit one hurdle after another. The proposal seeks to replace the current semester system in DU with a system that allows students to take up interdisciplinary courses in addition to the compulsory subjects known as foundation courses. This was the case with FYUP as well and it still results in a lot of trouble to colleges to arrange teachers on short notice and for short duration.
Widespread problem
For instance, in an off-campus DU college, only five students out of a batch of 70 opted for Human Resources specialisation. According to a teacher of the course, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the college had to arrange two new teachers on ad hoc basis within 15 days, with the result that they were neither competent nor interested in teaching such a small batch of students. As a result, the students ended up leaving HR and choosing finance in the middle of the semester.
Habib asserts that such problems are being faced by colleges across the university. “In Miranda House, for example, 61 positions were to be thrown open under the OBC quota, but the university sanctioned only 31 positions for hiring, even though UGC hadn’t formally stopped us from hiring," she said. Habib added that the situation was the same for many colleges as only half the quotas for hiring were sanctioned by the university and added that the situation is pretty much the same across many other universities.
According to Habib, some colleges have more ad hoc than permanent teachers, and most of them work with 40%-80% of their staff strength comprising of ad hoc faculty. The colleges now hope that the ban doesn't stay on for too long or more ad hoc teachers would have be hired to salvage the situation until the governing bodies are constituted.
But the situation is set to worsen as the government of Delhi has imposed a freeze on fresh appointments of teachers. The Arvind Kejriwal government took this decision last week to crack down on the 28 colleges it funds partially or fully, asking them to form governing bodies with representatives from the government before resuming appointments.
Predictably, the decision has not gone down well. Some teacher groups and the Bharatiya Janata Party said the government was “playing a game to appoint its own teachers”. The Indian Express quoted Delhi BJP President Satish Upadhyay as saying that the decision was part of a "game by the new government to appoint its own recommended teachers.”
Others from the teaching fraternity were more scathing. “This move in Delhi government shall inordinately delay the regularisation of at least 2000 young ad hoc teachers,” Inder Mohan Kapahy, a professor at DU and a founding member of National Democratic Teachers Front, wrote on his Facebook page. “This ban shall continue till AAP sponsored GBs (governing bodies) are installed in these colleges. This is condemnable since 5 members truncated GBs are fully and constitutionally competent to govern colleges in all aspects,” he added.
Ad hoc measures
The university has been dealing with a persistent shortage of permanent teaching staff as an “unofficial freeze” was placed on regularising ad-hoc teachers many years ago. “Hardly any permanent appointment has been made in the university in the last five years or so,” said Abha Dev Habib, a faculty member of Delhi University’s executive council.
More than 5,000 teachers in the university are on non-permanent basis, which means that their contracts have to be renewed every four months. According to Habib, the constant hunt by colleges for teachers to teach the numerous courses hurts the education system in the longer run as teaching becomes an unattractive option for aspiring teachers and students lose out on quality education.
“Most of the teachers are out looking for jobs after every semester,” said Habib. “Sometimes they are hired and sometimes they aren't, depending on the course requirements for faculty in various colleges.”
It doesn't mean that there are no immediate effects of depending on ad-hoc teachers. What this creates, however, is a situation where teachers are unsure of their jobs and students are unsure if they will get to study the subjects they choose.
The proposed credit based choice system has come on the heels of the four year undergraduate programme guidelines issued by the University two years back which has made it look like a mere repackaging of the old four year system into a three year format. After facing wide spread protests from students of multiple central universities last month, it continues to hit one hurdle after another. The proposal seeks to replace the current semester system in DU with a system that allows students to take up interdisciplinary courses in addition to the compulsory subjects known as foundation courses. This was the case with FYUP as well and it still results in a lot of trouble to colleges to arrange teachers on short notice and for short duration.
Widespread problem
For instance, in an off-campus DU college, only five students out of a batch of 70 opted for Human Resources specialisation. According to a teacher of the course, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the college had to arrange two new teachers on ad hoc basis within 15 days, with the result that they were neither competent nor interested in teaching such a small batch of students. As a result, the students ended up leaving HR and choosing finance in the middle of the semester.
Habib asserts that such problems are being faced by colleges across the university. “In Miranda House, for example, 61 positions were to be thrown open under the OBC quota, but the university sanctioned only 31 positions for hiring, even though UGC hadn’t formally stopped us from hiring," she said. Habib added that the situation was the same for many colleges as only half the quotas for hiring were sanctioned by the university and added that the situation is pretty much the same across many other universities.
According to Habib, some colleges have more ad hoc than permanent teachers, and most of them work with 40%-80% of their staff strength comprising of ad hoc faculty. The colleges now hope that the ban doesn't stay on for too long or more ad hoc teachers would have be hired to salvage the situation until the governing bodies are constituted.
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