PUCTA takes out march on campus

Tribune News Service

Patiala, April 23

The Punjabi University Contractual Teachers Association (PUCTA) today held a protest outside the office of Dean, Academic Affairs, against the decision of the university to allocate workload to SRF and JRF candidates. The university has also extended the contract of the teachers for only one month, which, according to the teachers, should be increased to six months at a time.

The matter of workload allocation sparked protests on the campus when the university directed principals and heads of the neighbourhood colleges and constituent colleges to submit details of allocation of workload as per a devised pattern. The same was not well received by contractual and lecture-based teachers who believed they would be ousted. The contractual teachers were also joined in by students and other regular teachers of the university in highlighting their demands.

The university’s contractual teachers today take out a protest march on the campus. They said they were apprehensive that the university wanted to allocate work to the SRF and JRF candidates, instead of the contractual teachers in order to relieve them. They said the university had also not released their salaries of the past three months.

Dr Lovedeep Singh, PUCTA president, said: “The university is daily releasing orders which are mounting pressure on the teachers.”

He said the university today released orders that the contracts of the contractual teachers were being extended for merely 22 days. “This is against the process earlier undertaken by the university in which the contracts were renewed for six months in a stretch,” he added.