Varsity staff protest in support of re-employed teachers

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 20

Coming out in support of the re-employed teachers, non-teaching staff members of Punjabi University Patiala’s regional centre here today staged a protest on the premises of the centre.

Protesting against other non-teaching staff members who are demanding ouster of the re-employed staff, they demanded that the university must not insult the teachers by relieving them mid-session.

Raising slogans, the protesters said the university was not thinking of the future of the students and had issued a letter announcing that the re-employed retired teachers would be relieved on March 31.

The protesters said around 12 PhD scholars and almost an equal number of MPhil students were attached to these senior teachers and if the teachers were relieved mid-session, the future of the students would be affected.

They demanded that in case the university couldn’t roll back its decision to relieve these teachers, it must at least fill the vacant posts before relieving the teachers so that the students don’t have to suffer.

They said the university had issued the notice announcing relieving of these re-employed teachers even as they were helping the students and were instrumental in maintaining the student-teacher ratio when the university was suffering from shortage of staff.

They derided those staff members who were demanding removal of these teachers.

They also demanded that a committee must be constituted to look into the irregularities in the financial records of the university and the reasons behind the financial crunch it is facing.