Hyderabad: The ongoing protest of Contract assistant professors against the Government to regularize their jobs in Universities will be entering the fifth day of the protest.
So far the contract professors have not yet got any response from the state government or the concerned universities regarding the protest. Now they will be calling for an indefinite strike which is likely to affect most of the state varsities and also will have a huge impact on the education.
The decision regarding the issue was to be taken on Monday in the OU Campus, ending the ongoing protest but so far the neither of the authorities have come forward with the decision. The ongoing protest which will enter the fifth day is likely to be supported by Congress MLA.
“We have not received any response from the state. So, we are mulling to start an indefinite strike. Tomorrow, the dharna will begin at 10am and by evening, details about the indefinite strike will be announced,” said Ch Parandamulu, contract assistant professor at the department of sociology in Arts College, OU.
The contract professors are protesting against the Government’s present employment which does not regularize their jobs even after having experience equivalent to those of permanent professors.
Currently, there are about 1,500 contract assistant professors working with various varsities like Osmania University, Kakatiya University and Satavahana University.
The professors at these universities who are permanent, draw salaries in lakhs whereas these contract professors only get between 23,000 to 40,000 as their salaries even with 20+ years of teaching experience.
The protest against the present system is to regularize their jobs and give them salaries equivalent to that of the faculty of the universities.
The contract professors have also demanded the Government should not issue notifications for recruitment of new permanent professors unless their demands are met and that the professors having experience of 20 years or more should be considered first for the new permanent recruitments. These assistant professors belong to Universities Teachers Association (contract), Telangana Universities Teachers Association (contract), and Osmania University Contract Assistant Professors Association.
Among various protestors continuing with the indefinite strike, the Telangana All Universities Contract Teachers Association (T-AUCTA) has called it off.
The T-AUCTA has called off the protest stating that the Osmania University Vice Chancellor S Ramachandram has assured them of ‘job security’ and also assured them that the University never planned of removing these professors from their contract jobs after a meeting with him last Saturday.
M Rameshwar Rao, state president of T-AUCTA said, “Earlier, we gave a call for an indefinite strike starting from Monday. However, we met the VC and as he responded positively, we are calling off the strike” sources reported.