Not being paid, allege university professors

Tribune News Service

Sameer Singh

Bathinda, January 22

In what could be termed as “utter disregard” towards the services being rendered by guest faculty (assistant professors) in constituent colleges and campuses of Punjabi University, Guru Kashi campus of the university in Talwandi Sabo, has decided to engage them to hold online classes sans salary.

Stop-gap system

We have decided to engage the guest faculty staff as a stop-gap arrangement. Thus, we decided to engage a few of them without payment for short duration. But if they have any objections, they can bring it to our notice, we will consider it. Amandeep Sekhon, Incharge, Social Sciences Dept

A letter issued by social sciences department of the campus mentioned that guest faculty would be engaged to take online classes and there would be no payment of honorarium or salary in return. The department incharge said “since, it’s just a stop-gap arrangement, we decided to take their services without payment, but if they have any reservations then we can change our decision”.

The letter reads: “As per the directions of Dean Academics, the study period schedule of semester would be extended by two more weeks and classes would be conducted through online mode by regular and contractual teachers and for the subjects for which they are not available would be conducted by guest faculty assistant professors. The letter further states: “The guest faculty assistant professors would not be paid any honorarium for their services”.

A guest faculty assistant professor on condition of anonymity said, “There could not have been worse way to discredit us for the services we have been rendering at the university. We have not received our salaries for the past one year. We were first appointed or engaged from January to June after that again re-engaged in September before being relieved temporarily in December. Now, they have suddenly issued the letter and decided to engage us to take online classes without salary. It is unacceptable.”

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