HYDERABAD: The state government on Wednesday issued a GO increasing the remuneration of contractual faculty and part-time teachers of the 11 state universities. A decision to increase the salaries of these 1,500 faculty members across the state by 75 per cent was taken last November, following the recommendation of the Prof Tirupathi Rao committee.
While lauding the move, assistant and part-time professors pointed out that there was no clarity on the implementation aspect of the GO. To be able to increase the salaries of the employees, the universities need the approval of the Executive Council. While the government has taken into account experience and academic qualification while coming up with the hiked pay scale, it seemed to have overlooked the assistant professors who belong to the self-financed departments. In OU for instance, of the 54 departments, 14 are self-financed.
The GO has extended the hikes only to teachers from the regular departments. “Of the 441 contract teachers in OU, 250 are in the regular department, 200 are parttime professors and 151 in self-financed departments. The GO in its present form has not given any benefit to these 151 teachers,” teachers said. As per the GO, contract faculty with NET, SET PhD would be entitled to a minimum of `43,000 ( per month) pay and a maximum of `70,000 per month (after 25 years of service).
OU teachers to be covered under contributory pension scheme
Hyderabad : After waiting for a decade, demands of Osmania University teachers to be covered under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) might be answered soon. It is the only State government university to not have been covered under the CPS. OU Vice-Chancellor, prof S Ramachandram, speaking to Express, said that the Chief Minister has cleared the file regarding the issue and a Government Order (GO) will be issued in few days.
OU Teachers Association (OUTA) which went on strike on Wednesday, resulting in many teachers boycotting their duties, decided to withdraw its strike call as the Vice-Chancellor announced the news. However, teachers await issuing of the promised GO by state government. According to rules by the then government of AP, those recruited after September 2004 should have been covered under CPS.
After 10 yrs, BRAOU to offer PhD, MPhil courses
Hyderabad: After a lull of almost a decade, Dr BR Ambedkar Open University (BRAOU) will be taking admissions for M.Phil and PhD from 2018-19. For the 10 subjects, 12 seats each will be offered. With the Universities Grants Commission (UGC) barring open universities from offering Ph.D courses, it had stopped admitting students in the research course after 2009.
“Over the years we fought with the government to get permission to offer these courses to students. Last year, we were told that we could enrol students in part-time research programmes,” said Prof YS Kiranmayi, academic director, BRAOU. Notification for the same is expected to be released within a week. BRAOU will hold its 22nd convocation on its campus at Jubliee HiIls on April 20.