Chandigarh: Nearly 190 private colleges of Punjab will observe an ‘education bandh’ (strike) Feb 26 on the call of the Joint Action Committee (JAC), which represents their faculty, principals and stakeholders.
The JAC was constituted last month by the private colleges management federation of Punjab and Chandigarh, federation of associations of college principals and teachers’ union (Punjab and Chandigarh) to draw the attention of the Punjab government towards the increasing problems of private colleges in the state.
“Despite our repeated reminders, the Punjab government has not done anything for the welfare of teaching and non-teaching staff of private colleges.
“In the last six months, we have submitted various memorandums, highlighting our demands, to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal but we have not received any satisfactory reply so far,” Jagwant Singh, general secretary of the JAC, told reporters here Wednesday.
“Now we have decided to go for a complete ‘education bandh’ in all (private) colleges of the state and to bring out a protest rally in Chandigarh on February 26. Representatives of all affected colleges will participate in this protest rally,” he pointed out. Singh said they were demanding that the ban on recruitment of teaching and non-teaching posts, imposed in July 2005, be lifted immediately.
“Presently, 1,700 teaching posts and 1,000 non-teaching posts are lying vacant and 2,500 teachers are working on contract basis in the state. There is a faculty deficit of nearly 50 per cent in the state,” he said.
The JAC was also demanding an instant release of grants, which the government had freezed in 1999-2000 and some part of which was released after 2006.
“Still many colleges are reeling under huge financial crunch. They are not able to give salaries to their staff, resulting in recruitment of sub-standard faculty at very low wages,” Singh said.
S.C. Sanwalka, president of the JAC, said: “The Punjab government is quite reluctant to meet our demands. If things continue like this, closure of many private colleges is inevitable in the next one or two years.”
-- IANS