HPU mulls hiring retired teachers

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, July 2

Reeling under severe staff crunch with 265 out of 410 sanctioned posts of teachers lying vacant, Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) is planning to utilise the services of retired teachers by engaging them on lecture basis.

“There is no substitute for experience of retired teachers and to meet the staff shortage, we would engage retired teachers on lecture basis to cope up with shortage of staff”, HPU Vice Chancellor, Prof A D N Bajpai said.

“While the recruitment process is on and at least 50 teachers would be recruited by the end of August 2015, the services of the retired teachers would be hired for teaching and research who would be paid on lecture basis, over and above their pension” Prof Bajpai said, adding that priority would be to fill the vacant posts in the departments where the number of teachers was minimum.

The university was facing shortage of 246 teachers. Following the retirement of 19 teachers on June 30 last, the number of vacant posts has risen to 265 which is more than 65 per cent of the total strength.

The university teachers have been demanding raising of retirement age to 65 but the government has turned down the request. However, it raised the retirement age of medical teachers from 58 to 62 years.

The retirement age is 58 for college teachers and 60 for university teachers.

The university had advertised 220 posts in different categories in September 2014 but no appointments were made. Following the decision taken by the university to make NET mandatory, the posts are being advertised again.