The All-India Federation of University and College Teachers' Organisation (AIFUCTO) has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi complaining against what the organisation sees as anomalies in the pay hike announced for teachers.
The letter also says that unless the concerns are resolved by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the outfit will take to an agitational path and observe a countrywide “Save Higher Education Day” on November 30 marked by dharnas and sit-ins.
Complaining about the “lowest-ever” financial support to states for implementation of the UGC's seventh panel's salary hikes for teachers in higher educational institutions, the letter says, “The GOI wilfully reduced the assistance from 80% for 51 months to 50% for only 39 months. Considering the reduction in share of percentage, early period of assistance (01.01.2016 to 31.03.2019), the central assistance will be worked out to only 1/3rd of the assistance meted out during the earlier pay revisions. Even when the assistance was 80%, many states could not implement the scheme of pay revision citing financial crunch. Now the decision of the Central Government to reduce the funding to 1/3rd will certainly pave way for denial of pay scales to teachers in many states.”
Comparing the present position to all past pay revisions, the letter says that the Centre bore 80% of the burden from four to six years in each pay revision from 1974 to 2006.
The letter from the AIFUCTO president and general secretary also expresses concern over the withdrawal of the additional increments for higher qualifications in the teaching profession.
“Considering the teachers' higher qualification, efforts they put in to acquire the degrees, time spent on research and to get degrees, usefulness of these degrees to their teaching, the various pay commissions gradually increased the incentive increments from three in 1986 to four in 1996 and five in 2006. This was done to attract talent and interested people to teaching with a view to improve the quality of education. The denial of incentive increments will not only seriously go against attracting talent to the teaching profession but also devalue the significance of the prestigious research degrees.”