Guest lecturers stage protest

Piqued by apathy of the Ministry of Higher Education, guest lecturers of the newly-converted government arts and science colleges that were earlier constituent units of Bharathidasan University staged a demonstration in campuses along with family members demanding settlement of salary dues for five months.

Over 600 guest lecturers and about 90 non-teaching staff have been making repeated representations to the Chief Minister, the Higher Education Minister and the Vice-Chancellor of Bharathidasan University, but to no avail.

Bharathidasan University had stopped paying the guest lecturers from the start of 2021 fiscal year, purportedly after the higher education department assumed responsibility for meeting the salary expenditure.

However, neither the government nor the university had addressed the plight of the guest lecturers for long. During the previous demonstration, the guest lecturers wrote letters en masse to the Chief Minister M.K. Stalin seeking his intervention.

Since there was no response from the government, the guest lecturers proceeded with their earlier announced protest of holding demonstration in the campuses with family members.

According to the representatives of the guest lecturers, they have been forced to launch an indefinite strike from October 21 to bring their plight to the notice of the Chief Minister.