TIRUNELVELI: The flip side of privatising higher education — which led to the mushrooming of new private colleges and many old aided colleges starting new self-financed courses — is not just high fees for students but also the peanuts lecturers and professors get as salary. Teachers are not paid more than `5,000-15,000 a month in tier II and III cities, but for some reputed colleges.
“We are the slaves of the 21st century,” said an assistant professor in a well-known aided college in Madurai, whose monthly salary is `5,200. He did his PhD from Madurai Kamaraj University in 2009 and has five publications in international, peer-reviewed journals, besides five books to his name. He also worked as a research associate in a UGC major research project and as an assistant professor in an FIP (Faculty Improvement Program). After all this, he was appointed as an ad hoc faculty in 2011 for a monthly salary of `3,000. In 2013, a ‘major revision on pay’ took his emoluments to `5,200.
Kathir (name changed), who has a PhD from University of Pondicherry and cleared UGC-NET, was called for interview in a college in Coimbatore. “I was offered a teaching job for a salary of `8,500 per month on contract basis. I had to accept it because of my family’s poor economic background. But what shocked me more was the identity card issued by the college, which had just my name, not the designation,” he said. “Even after nine years of experience, I get only `12,500,” said Malarvizhi (name changed) from Coimbatore.
A college in Nagercoil even demands that selected faculty pay a minimum of `2 to `4 lakh as deposit. “Left with no option, the candidates join and work for low salary, even less than `5,000,” said a lecturer from Nagercoil.
Lecturers grin and bear it because if they get seven-and-a-half years of experience, it would fetch them 15 marks in the teachers recruitment board interviews conducted for college lecturers. Educationists say the UGC should take proactive measures to curb such irregularities and formulate a centralised policy on minimum faculty wages.