The university has now made it mandatory for part-time guest faculty members to stay in the campus from 10 am to 5.30 pm. photo credit: file photo
Bengaluru City University has cut the remuneration of guest faculties by almost 40% for the coming academic year, drawing the ire of visiting faculty members. There has also been consternation that the university has now mandated even part-time guest faculty members to be on campus from 10 am to 5.30 pm and mark biometric attendance, making it difficult for them to teach elsewhere .
The university was earlier paying Rs 1,250 per hour for guest faculty who have cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET), State Level Eligibility Test (SLET) or are PhD holders, which has now been reduced by about 40% to Rs 780 has gone. Non-PhD holders and those who did not clear NET were being paid ₹750 per hour, which has now been reduced by 10% to ₹680.
Every year, the university appoints visiting faculty members in January, when most of them are already teaching and renew their contracts for another year. This year also more than 100 guest faculty members have been appointed in various departments after the application and interview process. However, many were in for a shock when they saw that the remuneration has been cut. Not only this, teaching hours of many guest lecturers were also seen reduced, which affected their salaries.
Many guest lecturers have opposed this move of the university. “Cutting wages is unethical. Not only has my remuneration been cut by about 40%, my teaching hours have come down from 12 to 16 hours a week to nine hours a week,” said a visiting lecturer, who also holds a Ph. Another guest lecturer said that teaching hours were cut for most of them and some were allotted only four hours a week, but all, even part-time guest faculty members, were allowed to visit the campus during working hours. Staying in is mandatory. “It not only reduces our remuneration, but also makes it impossible to teach in other colleges to sustain ourselves. How does the university expect us to survive inflation?”
However, the university administration has defended the decision. “We have adopted the state government’s remuneration system for guest faculty members and the same has been approved by the Syndicate. However, we will try to relax the rule that even part-time guest lecturers will have to be on campus for the whole day,” said Lingaraj Gandhi, vice-chancellor, Bengaluru City University.
A senior university official said the salary cut was done to ensure that there is no disparity between guest faculty members teaching more hours and those teaching fewer hours.
“As per UGC norms, a PhD holder guest faculty can earn a maximum of Rs 49,920 and a non-PhD holder Rs 43,520 per month. So those who taught more hours earned the same amount as those who taught fewer hours. We have now streamlined the payment system as per the norms,” said the official.