SPPU English dept profs on strike, claim recent appointments ‘illegal’

2 faculty members have sat on hunger strike demanding cancellation of recent ‘temporary’ recruitments made by varsity; the appointees in question are those that the students had earlier objected to as well

A year ago, a section of students at the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) English department had rallied to sit on a hunger strike, protesting several issues they were facing, including discrimination, while demanding that the then-head of department (HoD) vacate the post.

Now, two professors from this department have initiated a similar protest from Friday, claiming that recent ‘temporary’ appointments made to their faculty are “illegal”, and asking for fulltime dedicated faculty instead.

As Raj Nerkar and Kiran Manjre announced their hunger strike on the varsity campus, they insisted that two appointments made to their department for temporary positions stand cancelled. According to them, the varsity has displayed malpractices while making the said recruitments around a month ago.

Manjre told Mirror, “First of all, SPPU should cancel these two professors’ appointment and secondly, a committee should be set up to probe corruption and malpractice involved in the selection process.”

They also demanded a full-time HoD to take proper care of the department and make effective management decisions. At present, the department is headed by Dr Ashok Chaskar, a professor from the Sir Parshurambhau (SP) College, who was also a member of the SPPU board of studies.

On March 30 this year, students of the English department had also written a letter to the head and the university management, regarding the incompetency of newly appointed faculty at their place of study. After these complaints, SPPU had asked the professors in question to discontinue teaching their subjects, and had requested existing visiting faculty to take over the remaining syllabus.

Even as Nerkar and Manjre complained about “unfair practices by the university management” over these appointments, they also asserted that the university has failed to take action in this regard.

“Many other and better professors applied for the said positions, but the university showed a bias in the appointment process. They should just be nullified and their salary for a month should also be recovered,” said Nerkar.

For a better and fairer selection process in future, the duo is further pushing for all faculty interviews to be audio and videorecorded henceforth.

As reported earlier by Mirror, English students have also complained that the teaching abilities of the new appointees are not up to the mark, and that they lack an understanding of the subjects they teach.

This had been accepted by SPPU and the faculty changed for the aforementioned subjects just 15 days ago — but now, the protesters want a cancellation of these appointments.

HoD (additional charge) Chaskar of the English department said, “All I can say for now is that the appointment of the two professors on a temporary basis was done as per the appropriate systems followed by the university.”