After intervention of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the current issue in Delhi University has been resolved but the ad hoc teachers have renewed their demands. The ad hoc teachers are now demanding the government to make all of them permanent against the vacancies they are presently working, a demand university administration had never accepted.
The appointment rules of the university and the UGC do not allow such absorption of ad hoc teachers. As ad hoc teachers are hired on urgent basis, the concerned college principal has been given authority to conduct interview at the college level. In this interview, the external experts are not invited. Therefore, the allegations of favouritism are also labelled in such appointments. “If these ad hoc teachers are directly absorbed as permanent faculty, the decision will be challenged in the court,” said a permanent teacher in Delhi University. “Many of the ad hoc teachers were appointed out of favouritism and nepotism. They are ineligible and inefficient to be appointed as faculty,” he added. Besides, the UGC has given the university three options to fill the vacant teaching posts on urgent basis – ad hoc, guest, and contractual. However, a group of ad hoc teachers fear that the university is playing game with their career and they will soon be shown the door.
In a meeting with Delhi University Vice Chancellor Prof. Yogesh Kumar Tyagi and the UGC, the MHRD officials agreed on almost all the demands of the ad hoc teachers. The disputed letter of November 28, 2019 asking the principals to replace ad hoc teachers with guest faculty has been withdrawn. Besides, the serving ad hoc teachers will be given opportunity to appear in the interview whether they hold Ph.D. or not. The MHRD intervened in the issue after ad hoc teachers occupied the VC office in Delhi University on Thursday.
