HPU Regional Centre running on guest faculty

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, July 18

The Regional Centre of Himachal Pradesh University set up here about 24 years ago is still running on ad hoc faculty. About 40 out of the 45 teachers serving in the centre are guest faculty who are appointed on period basis.

Many departments running in the centre, including Masters in Journalism, Masters in Hindi, Law and Sanskrit, do not have even a single permanent faculty. These departments are being run by guest faculty who are paid per period by the university.

Vikram Chaudhary, a student who is doing law from the centre, said the way centre was being run was injustice to students.

The guest faculty is ideally defined as experts who are hired by the authorities to give lecturer to the students. However, at the centre, the Himachal Pradesh University has used the provisions of guest faulty to hire teachers. The teachers, who are teaching in the regional centre, are paid just about Rs 250 per lecturer and their services and discontinued during holidays.

Ram Kumar, a former student, said there are about 1,000 students in regional centre of Himachal Pradesh University at Dharamsala. The university should hire permanent faculty to teach these students. The standards of education in the regional centre are being seriously compromised due lack of permanent faculty, he said.

The authorities at the regional centre, while speaking on condition of anonymity, said the guest faculty in the regional centre was more than 90 per cent. They said that the university was likely to start the recruitment process for filling the posts of teacher in the next academic year. The authorities also said that they had moved the case for starting MBA, MCA and M Phill courses also at the centre.

The regional centre was shifted to its own building in Khaniara village about two years. However, due to the increased strength of students the building was proving inadequate.

The authorities of the institute admitted that the existing building of the regional centre was inadequate. They said a proposal had been sent to the HPU for construction of an additional block.

While the regulatory authority formed by the state government for ensuring quality in higher education was keeping a check on private institutions it was not focusing on the government institutions where there was serious violations of UGC directions on recruitment of faculty was being committed in the form of hiring guest faculty.