Vijayawada: While the Andhra Pradesh government has issued a GO enhancing the remuneration for contract teaching faculty in state universities, the faculty members are not happy and are seeking its modification.
They allege that the GO flouted UGC norms with regard to minimum eligibility criteria for a hike in the wages.
The higher education department issued GO Rt-110 on Wednesday. It said the contract faculty satisfying the minimum eligibility criteria set by UGC/ AICTE/ NCTE/ BCI and other statutory bodies shall be paid Rs 35,000 per month at the entry-level.
Those who possess a PhD as an additional qualification over and above the minimum eligibility criteria may be paid an additional amount of Rs 5,000 per month from the date of acquiring the additional qualification or from the date of joining, whichever is the latest.
Accordingly, as per UGC regulations, a PG degree with NET/SLET or a PhD is the minimum eligibility criteria for the faculty. If the contractual faculty member has a PG with NET/SLET and PhD, he or she may be paid an additional remuneration of Rs 5,000 per month.
A candidate with PG degree without NET/SLET shall have PhD to become eligible. In case, if he or she has PG and PhD degrees but not having NET/SLET, he or she shall not be paid the additional amount of Rs 5,000.
However, the assistant professors working on contract basis in the universities raised objections to the rule incorporated in the GO that those having PG and PhD degrees but not having NET/SLET will not get the additional pay of Rs 5,000.
Quoting UGC norms, they said that those who were awarded a PhD in accordance with the UGC Regulations, 2009, should be exempted from the requirement of minimum eligibility criteria of NET/SLET/SET for recruitment and appointment as assistant professor in universities/colleges.
They also want the state government to implement such a norm and give exemption for those who enrolled or were awarded PhD accordingly, for having NET/SLET/SET for getting an additional amount of Rs 5,000.
The AP universities contract assistant professors association state president Dr Malli Bhaskar said, “We want the GO to be modified to have the additional amount of Rs 5,000 paid to those who got PhD as per UGC norms, 2009, even if they are not having additional qualifications like NET/SLET/SET.”
On the other hand, the contract faculty may be given an annual increment of Rs 1,000 for every year of continuous service in the university so far irrespective of whether or not there were nominal break periods. The annual increment of Rs 1,000 will be given to the entry level pay but not to the present pay of the contract faculty.
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