College lecturers who visit other countries to attend or participate in international seminars and conferences appear to be making education officials apprehensive. Worried that they will act on the opportunities these trips offer or take up new jobs, the Department of Collegiate Education has asked lecturers to give an undertaking that they will not resign after they return from such trips or extend their leave to remain abroad.
The circular, issued last month and uploaded on the department website on Tuesday, fails to mention how long lecturers who have travelled to another country on work and returned are compelled to remain in their current profiles before tendering their resignation.
The circular has caused an uproar among academics, who see it as means to clip their wings. Department officials, however, said they came up with the guidelines after they found that lecturers were extending their leave and it was affecting the academic calendar of events.
Lecturers will also have to furnish 13 other details, including alternative arrangements made for their classes or examination and evaluation duty, and seek permission at least one month in advance.
What’s more, they will also have to give a detailed list of the costs they would incur and submit three years’ bank statement if they are funding their own trip. The circular has been issued to all lecturers and principals of government colleges.
Other details sought by the department include the address of the place they will be staying, name of the conference and an explanation as to how students would benefit from them attending a conference or seminar. They will also have to get a letter attested by the college principal that they do not have any pending departmental inquiries or criminal cases against them.
The circular has been criticised by lecturers who felt that asking for bank statements was an “intrusion”. “It is really absurd that the department has to tell us that we should not resign if we get any opportunity. How can they curb us in this manner,” a senior professor working in a government college in the city sought to know.
H.C. Ramanna, general secretary, Karnataka Government College Teachers’ Association, said, “At a time when there is so much emphasis on research, framing so many rules shows that the department does not want to encourage research or innovation.”
