Ref. MINISTER HRD/01/2013                                                                                          

12 June 2013

Dr M M Pallam Raju                                                                    

Honorable Minister for MHRD

Govt. of India

Respected Sir

Greetings.

The All India Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organizations (AIFUCTO) expresses its thanks to Hon’ble Minister for MHRD for having given us an audience to discuss a wide spectrum of issues confronting Higher Education & our professional demands.

Thanks for MHRD initiatives

We sincerely thank you for some recent actions which have benefited teachers of higher education. These include the reimbursement of 80 per cent share of the Union Govt. to the states who have submitted the claim. We request you to make early payments of claims being submitted now. We are the only category of employees in central & state Govt. sector who are yet to get the full arrears from the Govt. of India even after seven years of the implementation of 6^th pay revision. A further communication in this regard will be of great help to all the university and college teachers across the country.

We also thank you for the timely proposal of revamping higher education in the states as contained in the program-‘Rashtriya Uchatar Siksha Abhiyan’. We welcome the proposed scheme and assure you that we shall extend our whole hearted   support for the success of the same.

We have been regularly interacting with the officials of HRD and we are very thankful to them for constructive approach.& sincere efforts to improve higher education in India.

The AIFUCTO-- Federation representing more than 95 per cent of teachers

The AIFUCTO is a pan-Indian  organization of more than 5 lac College and University Teachers who are affiliated  through more than 250 affiliates throughout India. The organization has been relentlessly working for the welfare of the teachers, students, improvement of Higher Education, and society at large for more than 5 decades. The AIFUCTO has celebrated Golden Jubilee in December 2012 at Varanasi, UP,  its birth place. Our leaderships have been constantly interacting with the State and Central Governments and with various organizations of Higher Education, UGC, AICTE etc. We stand committed to provide  quality education services and remain  accountable. We are aware of our duties and have  always been  upholding age old values & cultural plurality of this vast country.

In this context of playing constructive role & addressing to various problems of the teachers in higher education sector, the AIFUCTO wish to bring some of the issues which warrants your direct intervention so that an amicable atmosphere can be created in the centers of Higher Education. 

Some brief observations on the state of higher education in India

1) Higher education in 12^th Five Year Plan

According to the Planning Commission approach paper to the 12^th Five Year Plan “Faster, sustainable and more inclusive Growth” submitted in August 2011 pointed out that the private Higher Education “accounts for about four fifths of enrolment in professional Higher Education and one third overall. For encouraging private investment, it called for “re-examination” of “not-for-profit” tag in Higher Education Sector. It proposed that the Higher Educational Institutions should be encouraged to raise its own funds, have reasonable Tuition Fees, differential Salaries to Staff etc. It aimed to make India a “Global hub for Higher Education”. The UGC came out with its XII Plan document almost on the same lines.

The draft 12^th Plan (2012-17) submitted by Planning commission before the National Development Council in December 2012 estimates that “developed economies and even China will face a shortage of about 40 million highly skilled workers, by 2020 while India is likely to see more Surplus of graduates in 2020. Thus India could capture a Higher Share of Global Knowledge based work. It expressed its concern over the fact that less than 20% of the estimated 12 Crore potential students only are enrolled in HEIs in India, which is well below the world average of 26%. The significant problem exist in quality of education and the HE sector is plagued by a shortage of well-trained faculty, poor infrastructure and outdated and irrelevant curricula. The use of technology in Higher Education remains limited and standards of research and teaching in Indian Universities are far below International Standards, it said

The strategy aims at expansion, equity and excellence. The draft proposes “a paradigm change” for achieving these goals. The emphasis will be on expansion with quality, diversification of Higher Education opportunities, developing world-class research Universities and development of key vocational and generic skill as per the needs of the labour market, it further added.

During 11^th Plan the total number of Institutions grew by 58% from 29,384 to 46430. The growth was 63.5 % in private institution, 49.2% in State Institution and 52.4% in Central institutions. By the end of the 11^th plan, the country had 645 Universities, 33,023 Colleges and over 12748 diploma granting institutions, During the period, 98 Private State Universities, 17 Private Deemed Universities, 7818 Private Colleges and 3581 private diploma institutions were started. The aim is to improve the GER from 17.9%(2011-12) to 25.2% by 2017-18 and reach the target of 30% by 2020-21, the draft goes on to add.

The draft asserts that during the 11^th Plan, Indian Higher Education moved from “elite to mass”. But AIFUCTO wonders how can it be called as “mass” when more than 80% of Children in the relevant age group of 17-23 years remain outside the ambit of Higher education.

The plan document proposes contractual faculty, allowing private Investors to make profits, making courses suited to the market, restructuring courses in line with North American model and charging of high fees from students. Undoubtedly, all these proposals will lead to commercialization of Higher Education.

2) Funding of higher education

We appreciate MHRD efforts to obtain more allocation for education including higher education. We are very much disappointed that the funds allocated to the Ministry is much less.

The Country had spent only 1.22% of its GDP on Higher Education in 2011-2012. Government spending has fallen far short of the requirement in the face of rising expectations of people in terms of access and equity. The 12^th Plan proposes 1.5% of GDP from the current 1.22%.

During the XI Plan, the proposed spending on Higher Education was Rs.84943 crores against Rs.9600 crores in X Plan aiming at 9 fold increase. But actual expenditure was only Rs.39647 crore(45.6% of plan outlay) In contrast, in 12^th Plan the plan outlay is only 30% increase over the XI plan i’e Rs. 1,10,700 crores, which is highly insufficient to achieve the goal of  mass education and access as envisaged in the report.

3) Huge vacancies in higher education in central & state institutions

We have pointed out many times that most state governments have stopped filling the posts that have fallen vacant for many years. Some states have not made any appointment in a decade. We understand that this has led to the erosion of quality of teaching and extremely damaging to the interest of students. We once again suggest that such irresponsible actions need your intervention. The MHRD can stop further grants unless the appointments are made in the vacant posts. A dangerous trend is the appointment of ad-hoc, part-time, contractual and guest lecturers. The states often argue that the non- availability of qualified teachers is responsible for the vacant posts. The real reason is their unwillingness to appoint teachers.

Due to the rapid expansion of Higher Education, the number of quality teachers in Higher Educational Institution is grossly inadequate. A doubling of faculty from the current 8 lacs to 16 lac are envisaged in 12^th Plan. While increasing the faculty strength, care should be taken to the safety and security of the teachers.  Adhoc-ism, contractual appointments will be detrimental to the health of Higher Education.  Central and all State Governments should appoint teachers with UGC recommended Scales. Huge disparity in the Scales between regular and teachers working in Self financing institutions is violative of principles of fair play & justice. This has created a lot of heartburns and ill-will among the deprived teaching fraternity. 

The scenario in most private institution is far from the satisfactory level. The urgent need on this is that the Government should ensure private Colleges, Deemed Universities and Private Universities appoint only qualified teachers. If necessary, a separate legislative mechanism can be planned separately for this purpose.  Otherwise quality will be a casualty.

4)  Capacity building of teachers & knowledge upgradation

The up gradation of knowledge is extremely important. Without continuous up gradation the teachers cannot keep pace with the knowledge explosion and the students will also suffer. This requires necessary infrastructure and providing facilities to the teachers. Unfortunately teachers are not being given opportunities to do so for many reasons including inadequate number of staff in the departments. At the same time there is acute shortage of infrastructure. We believe this problem can be solved with your intervention.

In this context, your initiative in the constitution & subsequent deliberations of CABE Committee on National Mission for Teachers & Teaching is timely and praiseworthy. We thank you for including our General Secretary. in the Committee. We do hope the final report will greatly serve the cause of our profession.

To strengthen teaching, short term courses should be planned through Academic Staff Colleges of various Universities (it need not be four week courses, it can be of lesser duration). For this purpose there should be more Academic staff colleges. More importantly the frequent change in the qualifications prescribed for teachers in the past led to chaos in appointments. The Government should allow the present norm to be followed for a reasonable time before reviewing its workability.

5) Creation and funding of new posts in the state government controlled sector

We have requested the MHRD to consider our proposal to adopt schemes to extend financial support to the states for creating new posts as almost all states have been shifting the existing posts to the newly introduced subjects which has proved to be extremely hurtful to the quality of teaching. There should be a ban on this practice with immediate effect. We suggested schemes where MHRD can shoulder major portion of expenditure for the creation of new posts.

Our professional issues

6) The  14940 issue  : Unresolved Anomalies in the 1996 pay revisions (CAS)

In the last pay revision the revised career advancement scheme was implemented from 27-07-98 instead of from 01-01-96. More over those who got career advancement as per the old scheme between 01-01-96 and 27-07-98 were not paid 14940/-after 5 years in the Selection Grade (SG) scale on the plea that they were not SG Lecturers as on 1.1.1996.

The Chadha committee ( for 6^th pay revision) noted the injury inflicted on this segment of teachers and recommended that this be rectified before fixation of pay in the revised scales of Pay. The MHRD notification also directed the UGC to formulate necessary procedures in consultation with the MHRD.

The Kerala High Court directed that the CAS should be given from 1.1.1996 and those whose date of career advancement fell between 01-01-96 and 27-07-98 be placed in 14940/- five years after service as SG lecturer. In spite of all these interventions by MHRD and the higher judiciary, this anomaly has not been rectified.

More recently, in Maharashtra, several teachers moved the Hon’ble High Court in several writ petitions which came to be decided in favour of teachers and against the Government and in one of the Judgments and Orders dated 8-4-2011 directions came to be given to the State.   In spite of this the State Government did not extend the benefit to all teachers but only to the Petitioners.   Hence more and more Petitions were filed.  Shivaji University Teachers’ Association filed Writ Petition in the Hon’ble Bombay High Court for hundreds of teacher-Petitioners in W.P. No.9218 of 2011 (SUTA V/s. UGC & Ors) and W.P. No.11282 of 2011 (Awalekar Jotiba L & Ors V/s. UGC & Ors).    The said Petitions came to be disposed of by Judgment and Order dated 29th February 2012 of Their Lordships Hon’ble Mr. Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Hon’ble Mr. Justice N.M. Jamdas, JJ.   The Judgment in para.7 states as under:

“7. We fail to understand as to how such stand can be taken by the authority in spite of two successive orders passed by the Kerala High Court and even by this Court.  We therefore direct the concerned authorities to consider the request of employees who are similarly placed as that of the petitioners in the present petition as well as Writ Petition No. 3324 of 2010 on the same basis, which approach is not only imperative but also obviate avoidable litigation for the said employees.  Copy of this order be forwarded to the concerned secretary of the Higher & Technical Education, State of Maharashtra, for information and necessary action.   Petition disposed of on the above terms.”

Now the state govts are appealing against the HC orders. It is imperative that MHRD should step in and undo the injustice caused to the teachers who are deprived of both benefits, 14940/- and feeder cadre.

7) Dealy in finalizing the Anomaly Committee (UGC Regulations -2010) Report & the plight of teachers

a.     After the implementation of UGC recommended Scales through MHRD notification of 31^st December 2008, UGC Regulations on “Minimum Qualifications for Appointments and promotion of Teachers and other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education, 2010” was notified on 30^th June 2010 and subsequently Gazette notification came on 18^th September 2010.

            To our shock, the Regulations,2010 contain two major classes which are highly detrimental to teachers , and it created lot of confusions. They are

i.              Effective date of Regulations on CAS,  namely 31-12-2008,

ii.             Impracticable Performance Based Appraisal System (PBAS)

The Regulation 2010 prescribes the 31^st December 2008 as the effective date so far as the CAS is concerned. This is highly impracticable and objectionable. The regulation itself came out on 18^th September 2010 but the effective date for CAS has been retrospectively fixed as 31^st December 2008. All the state governments and Universities in the Country need to adopt the regulations so that necessary changes in the statutes can be made and the necessary formats can be prepared. The retrospective implementation/haphazard implementation in different States led to chaos and several qualified and eligible teachers were denied their rightful Promotion/CAS. We demanded a reasonable time space should be allowed. We proposed that the new regulations should be effective from 2013 only. AIFUCTO strongly demands only prospective implementation of the Regulation, 2010 both in the UGC & AICTE domains.

Secondly, the prescribed PBAS in its prescribed format is highly impracticable. If it is to be implemented, the teacher will find little time to teach or coach students properly and hence we suggested a mechanism wherein teaching be given more importance vis-à-vis research   publication ,We are for maintaining quality but the approach should be pragmatic & equitable considering the heterogeneous conditions in different parts of India. We have brought to the notice of MHRD many times that the Teachers are not allowed to attend seminars,attend RC/ OC and pursue  Ph.D/research.

These issues were represented by AIFUCTO to UGC and MHRD. Consequently an anomaly committee headed by Prof. S.P. Thiagarajan was constituted in September 2010. The report was expected within 6 months. But it took more than one and half years to finalise its report to be submitted to UGC and then to MHRD. Then MHRD constituted Revisit Committee headed by Prof. M. Ananthakrishnan.. The AIFUTCO represented the above issues before the both Prof S.P. Thiyagarajan and Prof. M. Ananthakrishnan committees. During the meetings, AIFUTCO insisted that the PBAS should be made workable/simpler and preferably the existing Regulation (Regulation 2000) can be continued so that there will not be any hardship in getting CAS for teachers.

b.     In the 2006 Pay Revision three incentive increments were given only for those to acquire Ph.D. after 1-1-2006. The seniors who got their Ph.D. much earlier were denied this benefit. Due to this, the seniors who got their Ph.D. degree earlier than their juniors are getting much lower pay than their Juniors. In some cases even guides are getting lower pay than their wards. The AIFUCTO is of the firm view that it can be rectified only by granting three incentive increments for all those with Ph.D. when they move into Associate Professor in PB-4. The seriousness of this anomaly is illustrated in the following tables.

ILLUSTRATIONS IN SUPPORT OF THE DEMAND

Illustration -1

Note:    If the 1992 – M.Phil. holder gets Ph.D. after January 2006, his pay on acquiring Ph.D. is fixed at Rs.37,400/ plus 3 increments. This pay is higher than all those Ph.D. holders appointed since 1984. A teacher who was appointed 8 years later (1984/1992) and awarded Ph.D, 22 years later (1984/2006) is getting more pay than the seniors

Illustration – 2

Note:    If teacher X acquires Ph.D in 2006 his pay will be raised by 3 increments which is higher than the pay of Teacher Y appointed 8 years earlier and got his Ph.D. 7 years earlier.

Illustration – 3