To improve the teaching standard and making the teachers more accountable, the State Government has fixed minimum working hours for the college lecturers. But in a Government College, an associate professor who is getting about Rs 1.80 lakh per month towards salary and other allowances has just taken eleven classes in 15 months, i.e., from January 2018 to March 31, 2019.

He is Dr SC Karua, associate professor in history department at the Rourkela College.

The information provided by the Public Information Officer of the college to Rourkela Nagarika Samity general secretary Surendra Dash reveals so. The UGC guidelines say an associate professor should take at least 25 classes per month.

In his reaction after getting the information, Dash says it is a mockery to the Government system. According to him, a person who is getting about Rs 2 lakh as salary has just taken 11 classes in 15 months. If arithmetically it is calculated then in 15 months, he has taken about Rs 27 lakh and for each of his class, Rs 2. 50 lakh is spent.

Dash says it is just unfortunate and demands stringent action against the professor.

He further said that while paying a huge amount the Government fails to extract the work from an employee, in other way to weaken the education system the Government has been introducing the guest faculty system instead of posting regular Lecturers. It is also mockery of the highly qualified unemployed youths.

Not only this, the Government has fixed the remuneration for guest faculty at the +2 level at Rs 400 per class and subject to maximum Rs 16,000 per month and it is Rs 500 per class with maximum limit up to Rs 25,000 per month at the +3 level.

So, taking advantage of that, in many cases the regular Lecturers instead of taking classes are forcing the guest faculties to take a larger number of classes.

So, in many cases a guest faculty though eligible to get remuneration for maximum of 40/50 classes takes 70 to 80 classes per month. Otherwise, he is threatened to lose his job.

The tragedy of the guest faculties does not end with that as since January, the guest faculties are not paid their minimum remuneration. So, in what direction the education policy of the Government is going could be imagined well, says Dash.