The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) on Thursday led a march from Ramlila Maidan to Parliament Street in protest against government’s policy on higher education.
Hundreds of teachers participated in the march to highlight the plight of over 4,000 ad hoc and temporary teachers who have worked for years at DU under “insecure” conditions of service. Barricades were put up at Jantar Mantar to stop protesting teachers from proceeding further and they courted arrest on Parliament Street. DUTA condemned the Ministry of Human Resource Development for its “indifference” to the plight of the teachers and the “callous” approach of the government towards issues afflicting teachers and higher education.
“The policy thrust adopted by the MHRD is an assault on public-funded education by using every possible method to withdraw funding. The latest step is the attempts to bring in contractual jobs in DU. The DUTA also condemns the MHRD for refusing to meet representatives of teachers to start a dialogue for resolution of the issues,” the teachers said.
The teachers, in a memorandum to HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, wrote that over 4,000 teachers working on temporary and ad hoc basis in colleges and departments of DU are forced to carry on teaching without any job security, annual increments, and service benefits like maternity/ paternity leave, study/ sabbatical leave, etc., despite satisfying all eligibility criteria and possessing high qualifications like doctorates and post-doctoral research experience.
Calling it a “human tragedy of immense proportions”, they said DU’s failure to make permanent recruitments in a routine manner since 2010 has assumed such a critical proportion that it is adversely impacting the quality of the teaching-learning process in Delhi University, thus affecting even the students studying in one of the premier institutions in the country which claims to offer quality and affordable higher education. The DUTA demanded that the MHRD immediately considers a roadmap for the absorption of ad hoc and temporary teachers as permanent teachers for the sake of ensuring institutional stability and dignified conditions of work essential to maintenance of standards in teaching-learning.
They have called for a two-day strike to highlight issues related to the promotion of teachers who have been denied their due for years and will stage a dharna at the university on January 18.
