Madurai
Arguments over the possibility and legality of allowing faculty members of self-financing colleges to guide research scholars dominated the Academic Council (AC) meeting at Madurai Kamaraj University here on Tuesday.
It started with a resolution moved by M. Kannan, Principal, Saraswathi Narayanan College, demanding clarity on rules and regulations for awarding guideship to faculty members. He charged that corruption was prevalent in awarding guideship, to which a Syndicate member responded that the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) regulations in this regard were being followed now.
Vice-Chancellor M. Krishnan assured that stringent measures had been put in place to avoid irregularities and decisions on all pending applications for guideship would be taken within two months as per the criteria stipulated in UGC regulations, which included minimum of five years experience, two research publications in peer-reviewed journals, and the faculty member being a regular staff drawing UGCscale of salary.
The criterion of the faculty member being a permanent staff with UGC scale of salary triggered the debate. Highlighting that many staff members with self-financing courses offered by her college were doing excellent research work with funding from many agencies, Christianna Singh, Principal, Lady Doak College, said that there should be no discrimination between regular staff and self-financing staff in providing guideship. “With the fee collected from students, it is not possible to provide UGC scale,” she said, appealing that only factors related to competency must be looked at.
Many AC members, including M. Abdul Kadir, Principal, M.S.S. Wakf Board College, and M. Davamani Christober, Principal, American College, spoke in favour of providing guideship to faculty members from self-financing colleges.
Few other faculty members, predominantly those from MKU, opposed it citing the temporary nature of jobs of those working in self-financing colleges.
Increase pay
S. Nehru, Principal, Mannar Thirumalai Naicker College, said that while there should be no discrimination between regular staff and those engaged for self-financing courses, the colleges must come forward to pay the self-financing staff UGC scales of pay. “There should also be a guarantee that their employment is permanent,” he said.
The discussion veered on to corruption prevalent in academic research with guides demanding money from scholars. R. Lakshmipathy, Syndicate member, alleged that there was rampant corruption in university in all spheres.
Responding to the arguments, the VC said that measures were already being taken to curb corruption. On guideship, he said that since the university had adopted UGC regulations, relaxation of norms was not possible. “However, I can write to the UGC, if that will be of use,” he said.
