GUWAHATI, April 22 - Faculty members of eleven new polytechnics and the Barak Valley Engineering College, who were recruited last year, are crying foul over the government�s move to appoint �full-time� assistant professors and lecturers in the institutions through the APSC. They fear once the fresh appointments are made, they stand to lose their jobs.
�The recent APSC notification on the recruitment of permanent faculty members for the same sanctioned posts in which we are working as guest/part time faculty members has cast a shadow on our future,� faculty members told this newspaper.
The eleven new polytechnics and the Barak Valley Engineering College were set up last year and around 230 faculty members were roped in to run them.
�The advertisement published for recruiting the faculty members last year did not mention about the contract period. The applicants were short-listed based on their academic results and after a proper interview conducted by subject experts,� they said.
While the faculty members were appointed as guest or on part time basis, they were later asked to give an undertaking that they would not engage in any other work or join any other institutions and should focus on betterment of the new institutions, the faculty members alleged, adding that many faculty members who got engaged in permanent jobs in the private sector have given up their respective jobs to abide by the undertaking with the hope that their jobs would be regularised in due course.
At present, there are around 150 faculty members serving in these technical institutions.
�It seems the bureaucrats holding high positions are playing with our lives,� the faculty members, who had met the State Education Minister and other senior officials of the Department concerned regarding the matter, rued.
