Assam College Teachers' Association threatens stir if demands are not met in 15 days

GUWAHATI: The ACTA (Assam College Teachers' Association) has threatened that if the state government does not solve their problems within 15 days, it will resort to an agitation from December 6 to seek solutions to the problems.

Addressing the media here today, ACTA general secretary Jayanta Baruah said, "The Education Department has meted out gross injustice to the college teachers by not publishing the list of 430 associate professors prepared until November 17, 2022, after their promotions. This has led to a seemingly dearth of candidates for the filling up of the vacant posts of principal in various colleges in the state. There is also an artificial dearth of candidates for the filling up of academic registrars in the universities in the state. The department has also not appointed an adequate number of members or representatives to the departmental committees that look after issues like the promotion of college teachers. We demand the publication of the lists of various stages of associate professors-associate professor state I, stage II, and stage III. The department has prepared lists of around 1,200 teachers promoted from associate professors stage-I to stage-II and from stage-II to stage-II around five months ago. However, for reasons best known to it, the government has not published these two lists."

Baruah said, "According to rules, the Directorate of Higher Education should hold the meetings of the screening committee every three months to prepare the list for promotions of college teachers. However, the ground reality in the state remains that the Directorate has held only one sitting of the screening committee for the promotions of college teachers in the past one-and-a-half years. We also raise the demand for the cancellation of the new pension scheme (NPS) and the restoration of the old pension scheme (OPS). Under no circumstances can we accept the NPS, as the teachers will have no financial security after dedicating their lives to development education. We also raise the demand to bring the college teachers who got selection before 2004 but were appointed after 2005 due to departmental anomalies to the OPS, besides paying the arrears after the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission."

Baruah further said, "Some of the college teachers were appointed with a fixed salary of Rs 5,000 per month between 2004 and 2009. The government terminated their probation periods and regularised their jobs. Strangely enough, the government has not yet paid the fixed salaries of the teachers for the duration of their probationary period. We demand the exemption of around 300 college teachers who got appointments as per UGC regulations against non-sanctioned posts for the smooth running of the colleges since 1994 from fulfilling NAT or SLET criteria, as such criteria came into force much after their appointment in 2000. Such teachers got regularization of their posts against vacant sanctioned posts created later."

Besides the demand for raising their retirement age up to 65 years, the ACTA also demanded solutions to the problems of the newly provincialized colleges in the state, such as granting leave for teachers undergoing M.Phil. or Ph.D., mutual transfers, providing leave as per UGC norms, etc.

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