Part Time Lecturers : Address their issue : Ignominous treatment
- Sangai Express Editorial :: May 09, 2013 -

A legacy inherited from the past Governments. There is no doubt about it.

But then ten years should have been enough time to set things right or deliver justice. The tragedy is the present dispensation has abysmally failed to do this.

Poverty of ideas or political unwillingness or capitalising on an issue by sleeping over it ? The issue of Part Time Lecturers dates back to more than 10 years or so.

Bring this period into the realm of the everyday life and it becomes all that more glaring. A child born, when the grand concept of Part Time Lecturers took roots, would have made her a teenager now, ready to step onto the threshold of adulthood.

With the Manipur Public Service Commission lying in the doldrums, for long periods, between 1996 and 1999 and in view of the financial crunch felt then and with the shortage of teachers, particularly in higher education becoming acute, the State Government had to go in for the option of hiring part time lecturers some time in 1997.

And so it was that 637 Part Time Lecturers were recruited. The qualifications of the hired teachers of course must have been scrutinised and verified.

Not very clear, but the Government may not have inserted any clause that the Part Time Lecturers would be automatically absorbed as permanent employees. This however is besides the point.

The point is even after more than a decade the issue of Part Time Lecturers has not been resolved. And this is what is pathetic.

Assigned the same duty as their 'permanent' colleagues but a paid pittance, with some getting Rs 8000 as monthly salary with some others getting only Rs 4500 per month.

That the services of the Part Time Lecturers are still being utilised is a pointer to the fact that their services are indispensable.

If not, then why not disband them ? More like a case of the Government utilising the services of educated people without compensating them. This is unacceptable.

As things stand today, there are 430 Part Time Lecturers including 355 who have fulfilled the norms and rules and regulations laid down by the University Grants Commission.

The demand or the issue raised by the Part Timers, at least as of now, is to compensate them appropriately. This is not illogical nor unjustified.

By their very nomenclature, Part Time means a part time job. Now if the Government really sticks to this, then there should not be much of an issue.

But the reality is such that the number of Part Time Lecturers compare favourably with the permanent lecturers, with some colleges entirely manned by the Part Timers.

This is against the understanding of any employees who come under the nomenclature of part timers, whether in the Government or private sector.

Lack of fund is one reason which the Government is understood to have furnished for turning down the demand or representations made by the Part Time Lecturers.

This is something hard to digest, given the fact that the Government is not tight fisted with respect to other departments. The ongoing recruitment drive for 2000 police constables should be an indication.

In many ways the issue raised by the Part Time Lecturers is a reflection of where higher education stands in the Government's scheme of things, this at a time when Quality Education is on the lips of everyone.

There is also something called justice. Surely the Government owes the man or woman who has put in more than ten years of service as a Part Time Lecturer, working at pittance, something.

If in ten years time, the Government is unable to settle an issue concerning higher education, then the future does not look very bright indeed.

Human resource is what it is all about and nurturing higher education is certainly about tapping human resources.

The failure to understand this is taking the meaning of myopia to new heights and there is nothing to gloss over this.