Despite MHRD’s rollback, college teachers protest ‘increased workload’

However, after widespread protests by the teaching community across India, the MHRD on Thursday rolled back the UGC regulations for increasing the working hours.

According to a fresh notification issued by the MHRD, “The direct teaching-learning hours to be devoted by assistant professors (16 hours) and associate professors/professors (14 hours) too will remain unchanged, as a consequence of the direction from MHRD and subsequent notification by the UGC.”

In the wake of the suggested increase in the teacher workload, teachers from various aided colleges of Chandigarh have been boycotting the exam evaluation work at Panjab University.

A boycott in the evaluation work at all universities across the region has also been scheduled on June 1 against the recommended changes in the teacher workload.

General secretary, Chandigarh District Council of PCCTU, Bhupinder Singh, said the recent amendment issued by the MHRD does not address the issue of excluding six hours per week of tutorials, seminars and others from actual teaching workload.

Members of Panjab University Teachers’ Association (PUTA) also called for a meeting on Friday to deliberate on the stipulated increase in workload.

According to a statement from the meeting, “The new academic session is about to begin and workload distribution is to be determined in the departments within next fortnight. In the absence of clear cut guidelines, it will be difficult to carry out the allocation of load. We will wait for formal notification of amended workload, monitor the situation, before deciding further course of action. We are sending our representation to the UGC and MHRD on the issue.

Meanwhile, PUTA is in touch with other teachers’ bodies.”