Nov 5 — The retirement of Ms Sneh Mahajan as the Principal of the local MCM DAV College has brought to fore a crisis that has been brewing for two years now due to a directive of the University Grants Commission regarding the appointment of principals.The UGC directive says that a teacher should have a Ph.D degree or an equivalent qualification to become a college principal. Various bodies of teachers and principals of Panjab University and Punjab have criticised the directive.
The directive says that for the appointment of a college principal, a masters degree with 55 per cent marks, a Ph.D degree or equivalent qualification, 15 years of teaching experience in the professor’s grade and 10 years of teaching experience in the reader’s grade is required.
As a large number of senior teachers in colleges had not received 55 per cent marks in the masters degree examination, the limit was reduced to 50 per cent. Teachers also protested against the condition of Ph.D being a minimum qualification for a college principal. Teachers say that this way, senior teachers are being denied a chance to become principals. They say that the job of a principal is an administrative one and does not require to a degree in research. Moreover, as no research work is done in colleges, a college head need not have this degree.
Teachers also say that recruitment rules do not allow basic minimum qualifications to change after a person has joined an institution. These basic qualifications are supposed to remain the same all through his or her career. This change in service conditions, as laid by the UGC, is part of the revised pay package that the UGC has granted. It has been accepted by the university.
In August 1999, it was clarified by the UGC that this notification was not applicable to those principals who had been in service before December 24, 1998. The Panjab University Senate, in the meantime, passed a resolution introduced by Mr Charanjit Chawla, a Senator. It said in the absence of a regular principal due to his or her retirement, illness or demise, till a permanent arrangement is made, the seniormost teacher should be appointed the principal with full powers. More than 20 colleges of Punjab and now MCM DAV College here has seniormost lecturers officiating as principals.
The Panjab and Chandigarh College Teachers Union (PCCTU) has been demanding that this directive of the UGC should not be applicable to the existing staff of the college. In March 2000, the Panjab University Senate passed a resolution to this effect. The UGC replied in April 2000 that it could not change this directive as it had become a regulation and the matter no longer in its jurisdiction.
On June 27, a delegation of the PCCTU, met the Principal Secretary for Higher Education, Mr G.P.S. Shahi, Mr Amarjit Singh, Special Secretary for Higher Education and the DPI Colleges Punjab, Mr H.S. Deol. Teachers were requested to write to the Union Human Resource Development Ministry get the regulation denotified.
The PU Vice-Chancellor, in the meantime, constituted a committee under his chairmanship to look into the matter. The committee recommended that a four-year relaxation be granted by the UGC for the appointment of non-PhD principals from among the existing staff of the affiliated colleges. This recommendation was accepted by the Syndicate on October 28, 2000.
This is where the matter stands today and a reply is awaited from the UGC. Rural colleges of Punjab, however, want an amendment in the regulation as teachers of 95 such colleges may not be able to fulfil these basic qualifications.
