58 adhoc teachers in Delhi University: Education Minister tells Parliament

NEW DELHI: The Delhi University currently has only 58 teachers working on adhoc basis, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan informed the Parliament on Monday.

According to the Union education ministry data, DU had employed 102 and 76 adhoc teachers in 2019 and 2020 respectively. However, the DU teachers say that over 60 percent of teachers working in DU colleges are ad hoc.

“This data must reflect only the university’s department-level ad hoc teachers because otherwise, the colleges affiliated to DU have more than 5,000 teachers working on ad hoc basis,” said Rajesh Jha, DU teacher, a former member of the DU executive council and of the Academics for Action and Development. “There are still several vacancies and the university has stopped appointing ad hoc teachers since August 2019,” said Jha.

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According to government data, 57 colleges affiliated with DU had employed 3,240 teachers on adhoc basis in 2020 and 3,082 teachers in 2019. As many as 134 teachers in Ramjas College and 135 teachers at Daulatram College were working as ad hoc teachers last year. Shri Venkateshwara College, Kalindi College, Deshbandhu College, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee College and Dayal Singh College had more than 100 adhoc teachers.

Even at the department level, some teachers who were appointed between July and November were removed from the teaching position after the university halted the appointment of ad hoc teachers, Jha added. “There are many positions lying vacant and guest lecturers are appointed to fulfill this requirement,” said Jha. The guest teachers are paid on a per lecture basis and do not have benefit of allowances, pension, gratuity and leave, etc.

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Pradhan also said that there is no proposal under consideration in the University Grants Commission, or UGC, to absorb the adhoc teachers as permanent teachers. DU had advertised vacancies of 857 permanent faculty posts of professor, associate professor and assistant professor in July 2019. Currently, out of 1,706 sanctioned teaching positions, 846 are lying vacant at Delhi University, the government data further stated.

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