Deprived college teachers urge Himanta Biswa Sarma to provincialize their posts

LAKHIMPUR: The college teachers of Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts, whose posts have been deprived of provincialization, have appealed to Education Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma to provincialize their posts. According to these teachers, they have been deprived of their posts from being provincialized on such a ground which is not mentioned in The Assam Education (Provincialization of Services of Teachers and Reorganization of Educational Institutions) Act, 2017 and Amended 2018.

Notably, the State Government provincialized 134 colleges and the posts of these educational institutions in 2013 across the State. In that time, several hundred posts of teachers of these colleges were left from the process of provincialization due to lack of requisite norms of the working teachers and then it was declared that the posts would be provincialized if the working incumbents attained the requisite norms as per the provisions of the then Act. Later these incumbents have achieved all the requisite norms being qualified in NET, SLET and attaining PhD degree which are required for the provincialization of their posts.

Of late, the Government of Assam in Higher Education Department has sanctioned 690 numbers of posts of Principals, Tutor Principals, Assistant Professors and Tutor Assistant Professors for the provincialization of services of these 134 provincialized colleges and 241 numbers of posts of Principals, Tutor Principals, Assistant Professors and Tutor Assistant Professors for the provincialization of services of 27 new degree colleges of the State vide Government sanctioned letter No. AHE.1010/2019/Pt/6 dated 17-08-2020 and No. AHE.1010/2019/Pt/7 dated 17-08-2020.

The lists of selected teachers concerned were declared on August 18. It is known that almost 50 such college teachers of Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts have again been left from the recent provincialization process due to various grounds. Out of them 11 teachers of the two districts have been deprived of the ground that they have attained their MA Degree from the universities outside of Assam.

Under such circumstances, these deprived teachers, working at Harhi College, Machkhowa Degree College, Sissi Borgaon College, Dhemaji Girls' College have lost their heart being deprived of their services being provincialized.

"We are astounded by the development that our names have not been included in the 690 member list. We are deprived of our services from being provincialized on the ground that we achieved our MA Degree in the universities outside of Assam despite they are UGC recognized universities. It has grieved us immensely that we are deprived on a ground which is not mentioned in the Act concerned. We have seen that many people have been serving under the State Government with their Degree achieved in other States. We have been in the noble service of teaching in our respective colleges for 15 to 20 years without drawing salaries. We are deprived of our right by neglecting our degree which we attained with our regularity and sincerity. We appealed to the honourable Education Minister to reconsider the issue and to provincialize our posts", stated the deprived teachers. In this regard they submitted a memorandum to the minister concerned.

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