The State Higher Education Department has asked the Director of Collegiate Education to issue an order stating that the tenure of the 370 surplus teaching staff recruited by Annamalai University, who are currently working as assistant professors in various government arts and science colleges, will be extended for another term of three years.
According to an order issued by the department, the redeployment was necessitated as the Registrar of the university had informed the department that the institution’s financial burden had not been “retrieved”, and “the University is not in a position to take back the surplus staff”.
The registrar had, in a letter written in January 2022, noted that the agreement to redeploy the surplus staff, executed on February 1, 2019, was about to expire.
However, the department’s decision has not gone down well with guest lecturers employed in colleges across the State. They had protested when the previous AIADMK government mooted the idea of redeploying the surplus staff of Annamalai University. However, at that time, they were assured that it would be a temporary move. The guest lecturers were apprehensive about a possible extension of tenure as many of those who were being redeployed were young and had many years of service left.
V. Thangaraj, president of Tamil Nadu All Government Colleges UGC Qualified Guest Lecturers’ Association, pointed out that while they received much lower salaries, the redeployed faculty were paid salaries on a par with permanent teachers. “This is true of even non-teaching faculty,” he said.
According to him, guest lecturers in Central universities were receiving the salary stipulated by the University Grants Commission. The association’s angst is that they are paid only ₹20,000 per faculty.
