Replaced by permanant staff, guest lecturers take to streets

Guest faculty assistant professors all over the state are staging protest today against the AAP government for rendering them ‘jobless’ as many new teachers have taken over in the government colleges as assistant professors. The protest was held both at SCD Government College here and Government College for Girls, Ludhiana.

Some 100 guest faculty assistant professors took part in the protest. They said since 2002, they were working as guest faculty assistant professors in the government colleges of the state and over these 22 years of long service, they had put-in sincere efforts not just in teaching the students but taking care of other duties in the colleges as well.

“Starting from organising the NCC and NSS camps to cultural, sports activities, election duties, and university examinations, these teachers were always present and all of a sudden they are being replaced by permanent recruits. The government has shown the posts as vacant where new permanent assistant professors have taken over, whereas, the fact remains that we were working on these posts for the past two decades,” Falwinder Verma, one of the guest faculty assistant professors, said.

Other guest faculty assistant professors, including Shivani Arora from GCG and Parminder Kaur from SCD Government College said instead of replacing them, the government should have accommodated these newly appointed staff in the colleges where there were vacancies.

The protesters said they had reached the stage where they could not apply for government jobs due to their age. It was the duty of the government to accommodate them in a dignified manner as they had put in two decades of hard work.

They added that they should be provided the salary rules with basic pay, 38 per cent DA, 10 per cent HRA, mobile allowance of Rs 500 and medical allowance of Rs 1,000. The teachers said that if the government failed to listen to their just demands, the protest would be intensified. It may be mentioned here there are around 850 guest faculty assistant professors in government colleges in the state.