Guest lectures: No extra pay for Panjab University faculty

Ishrat S Banwait

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 25

From this session, the teaching staff at Panjab University (PU), Chandigarh, will not be paid for taking guest lectures. The Vice-Chancellor has ordered a change in the existing rules, which allowed university teachers to take classes in other departments and earn Rs 1,000 per lecture. According to the new rules, the university departments will engage research scholars for the job.

The circular listing all details has been issued to the departments by the Dean, University Instructions. It says that all research scholars, pursuing PhD under any fellowship programme, be assigned five-hour teaching workload as per the UGC norms.

Those who have completed their PhD and are NET qualified and are not working anywhere else can also be assigned teaching assignments. They will be paid Rs 1,000 per lecture but a maximum of Rs 25,000 per month. 

Speaking to Chandigarh Tribune about the development, Dean (University Instructions) Meenakshi Malhotra said, “This will be a boon for research scholars and help prevent any trouble during the audit as university professors are already receiving hefty salaries besides being paid for taking guest lectures.”   

Teachers may volunteer

The existing faculty, which includes the re-employed professors and scientists, can still take guest lectures. However, it will be a voluntary service and they will not be paid for it. The new guidelines will be applicable to all departments, centres and institutes under the PU. The relief for the teaching staff in this circular is that their workload will be aggregated. Earlier, they were required to take the complete workload of their parent department. They then received a certificate from the chairperson of the department and took up guest lectures. However, they will not be required to take the complete workload in their parent department now. The circular reads, “... their teaching workload for taking classes in other departments shall be aggregated in the total workload assigned in their parent department”.