Teachers' body of Guru Jambheshwar University threatens stir if demands not met

Hisar, June 6

The Teachers Association of Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology (GJUST) have threatened to start a hunger strike from tomorrow if their issues and demands were not redressed by the acting Vice-Chancellor of the university.

Varisty running without regular vc

The university has been running without a regular VC for 10 months. Dr BR Kamboj, who is the VC of HAU, has been given the additional charge of GJUST, and is ignoring the key demands of teachers. — Prof Rishipal, Prez, Teachers’ association

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In a press statement here today, Prof Rishipal, president, Teachers Association (GJUTA), said the university had been running without a regular Vice-Chancellor for the past 10 months. He said Dr BR Kamboj, who was the VC of HAU, had been given the additional charge of GJUST, was ignoring the key demands of teachers and instead taking various dictatorial decisions that were either subverting the autonomy of the university or causing insecurity and unrest among the teachers.

He alleged that the caretaker Vice Chancellor behaved arrogantly with the teachers at the meetings of the statutory bodies of the university. In the recent academic council meeting, he forcibly included a provision for himself to appoint examiners for PhD thesis evaluation undermining the statutory bodies of the university — departmental research committee (DRC) and postgraduate board of studies (PGBOS)— and also setting precedence for future tampering of the university Acts statutes and ordinance. He even ignored a written protest letter signed by 20-teacher members of the Academic Council, he alleged.

He said unless the teachers in the university were provided with necessary working environment and peace of mind, the quality of education was bound to take a hit. He appealed to the Governor and Chief Minister to take note of the grievances of the university teachers so that the larger interest of higher education could be protected.

Prof Avnesh Verma, Registrar of the university, said the university had accepted the demands of the protesting teachers which were at the university level and was actively taking up the demands which were at the state level. He further clarified that no Vice-Chancellor was a caretaker Vice-Chancellor and claimed that the routine activities were being done by the Vice-Chancellor to the satisfaction of a large number of teachers excepting a few, who had their own interests.

Prof Verma said to get quick results of the PhD evaluation, the university had expanded the list of the thesis examiner from 6 to 20, which was in synchronisation with other state university patterns so that external examiners were not overburdened with the large number of PhD thesis evaluations. The university administration condemned the inappropriate language used by the teachers’ union.