Failure of TISS management, apathy of BJP Govt; revoke mass termination: Students on sacking of staff

NEW DELHI: Condemning the termination of teaching and non-teaching staff by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), a students’ group hit out at the BJP government and demanded immediate withdrawal of the ‘mass termination’. TISS sacked around 100 staff members including some at its Guwahati campus due to lack of funds, as per a report by the Indian Express. The termination letters reportedly read that the staff's contracts will not be renewed and their services end on June 30.

The institute's student group, Progressive Students’ Forum (PSF), expressed shock over the news and called it a ‘complete failure’ of the TISS administration and ‘apathy’ of the union government. It said that the institute has unleashed an attack on its employees after targeting its students.

“Even though the exact numbers are not clear, this shocking news comes just 48 hours before nearly a hundred institute staff members which were previously funded by the Tata Education Trust will become unemployed after years of service at TISS. It is completely a failure of the current leadership of TISS administration in running the institute and apathy of the BJP-led union government,” the students’ forum said in a statement.

The students said that the mass termination will create a scarcity of teaching and non-teaching staff and expressed concern. The forum mentioned that the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) data from previous years shows that the student-faculty ratio is being negatively impacted. This means that the currently employed faculty is insufficient in proportion to the number of students admitted to the institute every year. The students fear political appointments of staff in future.

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“While the termination of a hundred such positions will directly impact the futures of the students who are enrolling in the Institute, it might also allow for politically motivated appointments in the near future,” it said.

TISS public status, funding

According to the PSF, the central government’s takeover of TISS is leading to various student issues instead of easing it for them. The ‘premier’ institute which has existed for nearly 90 years has achieved a distinct status with the help of the contribution from its faculty and staff, it said.

“Last year, the BJP-led union government took over TISS, making it a fully 'public-funded institute'. The result has been that students are facing delays in receiving student aid and are being threatened in the name of fee payment. While becoming a public institute should have relieved the pressure from students coming from economically and socially marginalized backgrounds, the central government takeover has resulted in added monetary pressures. The latest move of robbing a hundred teaching and non-teaching staff at the institute of their jobs highlights the BJP government's anti-education and anti-TISS stance,” the statement read.

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The students’ body held the union government and the current TISS administration directly responsible for taking away the livelihoods of almost 100 employees and putting the future of its students at stake too. It pointed to the recent ‘blunders’ made by the Ministry of Education in conducting national level examinations and said that they only add to the incompetence of the government.

The students demanded revoking of the termination or meeting with the top management to continue funding of the sacked employees. “At such a time, we demand the TISS administration to immediately revoke the mass termination and make necessary arrangements with the union government and the UGC to take responsibility for those previously employed under the Tata Education Trust. Alternatively, they must hold urgent discussions with the top management of the Tata Education Trust to reinstate funding for these positions so that all jobs are protected,” it stated.