Engineering faculty face uncertainty

Hyderabad: The All India Council for Technical Education (AITCE)'s new rules reducing the faculty-student ratio from the present 1:15 to 1:20 for engineering programmes has hit scores of faculty members like a bolt out of the blue.

According to the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H) officials, the new rule has been notified in December 2017, would come into force from the current academic year.

This was a long pending demand of the engineering colleges across the country calling for relaxation in the faculty-student ratio. The main contention of the managements of the colleges was that there was a mismatch between AICTE norms and the workload prescribed by the JNTU-H and other universities.

In an attempt to resolve the discrepancy, the AICTE had increased the faculty to student’s ratio to 1:20 bringing it on par with the requirements of the workload as prescribed by the universities.

Following these changes, now, the engineering colleges have been engaged in the identification of the excess faculty as per the new norms and issuing termination orders.

However, as per the contracts of appointment norms of these colleges, either party has to give three months’ notice in case of termination or resignation. Without prior notice, if the faculty wants to resign he/she will have to pay up one to three mon­ths of salary.

Similarly, in case managements want to terminate, they will have to pay one to three months of salary. However, the managements have been asking the faculty members identified as excess teaching staff since March, this year to leave.

However, they are not ready to pay notice period salary as per the appointment norms. When some faculty members demanded the same, they were asked to submit their resignations, if they wanted their original certificates back, which were deposited with the colleges at the time of their appointment.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior official of the JNTU-H said, “Some of those suffering due to this new development had approached the university seeking the intervention of the Registrar and the Vice-Chancellor. However, there is little the university could do in this," he added.

It was against this backdrop that Prof Krishna Kishore, a senior faculty working in the Nallamalla Reddy Engineering College, Ghatkesar Mandal lodged a complaint with the police that he was allegedly beaten up for seeking notice period dues, as he was identified as excess faculty and the management wanted him to resign from his position in the college, the source said.

By V R C Phaniharan