Teachers’ organisations are up in arms against the government order to revise the norms for fixing minimum requirement of workload for teaching posts in aided arts and science colleges.
In its order issued a day ago, the Higher Education Department had modified the criterion for sanctioning regular teaching posts to 16 hours from 9 hours per week currently. The requirement will also apply for those posts sanctioned for single faculty subject.
Only guess lecturers’ can be utilised for subjects with a workload less than 16 hours. Besides, the weightage of postgraduate classes will no longer be considered for staff fixation.
‘Unilateral move’
Terming the move ‘unilateral’, the Left-leaning All Kerala Private College Teachers’ Association (APCTA) has threatened to boycott answer scripts’ valuation duties after the reopening of colleges if the government refused to withdraw the order.
AKPCTA general secretary P.N. Hari Kumar said that the order has in effect scrapped the existing norm of considering each hour of postgraduate class as one-and-a-half hours for deciding the number of seats.
He cautioned that removing the requirement for permanent faculty for single faculty subjects could lead to a scenario in which statutory bodies including the Board of Studies, Faculties and Academic Councils comprised on guest lecturers.
The Kerala Private College Managements’ Association and the Kerala Private College Teachers Association have also criticised the government move.
