BENGALURU: “We have been surviving by God’s grace,” said Rajesh K (name changed), a faculty member of a private engineering college in the city. “However, not everyone is fortunate enough to have a secondary source of income. I have a PhD and have been living with a 40 per cent pay cut since April. Several female lecturers with the same qualification have quit,” he said.
Lecturers of private colleges who were facing a difficult situation with AICTE’s rules in 2018-19 to increase the student ratio to teacher, thereby reducing the number of lecturers per college, are facing a double whammy with Covid-19, they say.
“The pandemic has been a convenient excuse to sack lecturers and cut salaries in several engineering colleges. Institutes have been reluctant in blaming the pandemic in their official communication, when asking lecturers to go on long leave or sacking them or cutting their pay.
The Local Inspection Committee that assesses the institutes also took cognizance of the alarming salary and job situation. Lecturers wrote to the AICTE, to the Chief Minister and Prime Minister’s Office. Yet, the situation on ground remains unchanged,” said Rajashekar, president, Engineering Colleges Faculties Association.
They have sought a Government Order against dismissal of lectures by private colleges amid the pandemic and have demanded full salary. “A majority are in the post of ‘assistant lecturer’ . The government should at least pay the stipulated pay that the AICTE has outlined, for the months of July and August.
Every year, lecturers from private institutes are denied salaries as this is the vacation period. This year the number of such cases has increased,” a college lecturer said. “This year, engineering colleges started cutting pay from April itself. How are we to absorb such economic shocks,” the lecturer said.