New Delhi, Jul 9 (IANS): As part of its fight against the unpredictability common with ad-hoc teachers' jobs, the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) has now decided to visit the principals of those colleges which have opened fresh vacancies for such posts, intending to replace the existing ones.
Due to their efforts, at least three colleges - Janaki Devi Memorial (JDM) College, Kirori Mal College (KMC) and Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) College - have deferred their hiring of ad-hoc teachers, for which they had issued advertisements a few days back, a DUTA Executive Council member told IANS.
"So far, about 15 colleges have advertised vacancies for the ad-hoc teachers. Our demand is that they let the existing ones continue and advertise only for the newly created vacancies. After our meeting, their principals have deferred the interviews for these posts," DUTA Executive Council (EC) member Sudhanshu Kumar told IANS.
Kumar, who is also an Assistant Professor at Swami Shraddhanand College, said Daulat Ram College and Bhaskaracharya College are also likely to defer their plans to replace existing ad-hocs.
Appointed for a maximum of four months as a stop-gap option until a permanent candidate is found, thousands of ad-hoc continue to be shuttled from one college to another.
"It is not these teachers' fault that they were not made permanent. Instead of issuing vacancy for permanent teachers, the colleges continue to extend their tenure after each four months, or issue fresh vacancies to replace them. The ad-hoc posts have become an instrument of wielding power as authorities generally fill them with their favourite candidates," Kumar said.
On the issue of permanent positions, the colleges initiated steps since the Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar promised earlier this year to fill all permanent posts and directed the colleges to work in that direction.
A total of about 55 DU colleges have issued vacancies for permanent faculty this season.
The DUTA as well as other faculty members are demanding that ad-hoc teachers be absorbed into the posts of permanent faculty as "many of these teachers are employed in that capacity for about a decade now".