Haryana revives plan to adjust in state-run colleges staff picked from aided colleges

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The Haryana education department is once planning to pick the staff from the state-aided private colleges and adjust them in government colleges, four years after the scheme a roadblock following opposition from several quarters.

A senior officer of the education department while requesting anonymity told The Indian Express: “Yes, we are examining a proposal following a demand from teachers’ associations. The proposal will be sent to the government for a final call.”

Another official privy to the development said: “At present, we are mulling over shifting 20% staff of the aided colleges to the government colleges. There may be a separate cadre for these shifted teachers in the government colleges but they won’t be able to claim promotions like the government college teachers.”

According to the official figures, as many as 1.33 lakh students are studying in 97 government aided colleges in the state while there was enrollment of 2.18 lakh students in state’s 182 government colleges across the state for the current academic session. Self-finance colleges too have an enrollment of nearly 35,000 students. The aided colleges are run by educational societies and trusts like DAV, Vaish Society, MLN Society, Tika Ram Society, Hindu College Society, Khalsa Society, Jat Society, and Santan Dharma (SD) Society.

College Teachers’ Association (CTA) has been pressing for the takeover of the aided colleges’ staff insisting that currently they don’t get benefits like leave travel concession (LTC), children education allowance, and medical facilities.

However, Haryana College Teachers’ Association (HCTA) on Tuesday wrote to the state government insisting that the teaching fraternity represented by the association will not accept any modalities of takeover without credible and genuine consultation with it.

Meanwhile, management bodies of several aided colleges have strongly opposed the idea of shifting their staff to the government colleges suspecting that eventually all sanctioned posts from these institutions would be taken out. They have sought intervention of Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar by sending a memorandum signed by the presidents of 57 management bodies.

Tejvir Singh, president of Welfare Association of Management of Aided Colleges, says he has also taken verbal approval (over the phone) from the presidents of 23 more bodies against the move. Former presidents of a dozen educational societies, which are currently run by the government-appointed administrators, have also been contacted. “By this mathematics, we can say that the management of nearly 90 colleges is with the association on this issue,” Tejvir Singh claimed, adding that “if the qualified teachers are taken out from the aided colleges, it would severely affect the studies of these colleges.”

Tejvir Singh, who is also a former MLA and is heading management of three colleges in Pundri, also said: “If the state wants to add more staff to the government colleges, it should recruit new teachers for them. Moreover, the government should give nod to filling the vacant and sanctioned posts of teaching and non-teaching staff for the aided colleges.”

The managements argue that once the staff are taken out from the aided colleges, they won’t get grants from the government bodies like UGC (University Grants Commission), RUSA (Rashtriya Uchchattar Shiksha Abhiyan) and other government departments, making it difficult for them to run these colleges. “Then these will be put in the category of self-financed colleges which would lead to heavy increase in the fee of these colleges, making it difficult for the wards of the poor, especially from the marginalised section and rural background,” said Tejvir Singh.

Some of these aided colleges were set up by educational societies which have been active in the area of education for the past nearly 100 years. Initially, they opened schools and then they were upgraded as colleges. Mainly these educational institutions were set up with the financial contribution of local people to offer higher education in those areas which were lacking such facilities.

The government offers them 95% of the staff salary as grant-in-aid. Currently, these colleges have nearly 3,600 sanctioned posts for teachers and non-teaching staff. These institutions have infrastructure worth crores which was created with the help of the public, UGC, government, and the teachers.

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Even the student bodies have opposed the idea of shifting the staff from aided colleges stating that it would turn these charitable colleges into out-and-out private colleges where the teachers or other staff would end up getting very low salaries in comparison to the current salary structure. They also say that in the absence of qualified staff, several facilities like laboratories, libraries, seminar rooms, and sports facilities would be under-utilised.

Vinod Gill, a student leader, says it’s not fair to fill the posts of government colleges at the expense of quality education in aided colleges. “If all the staff of aided colleges are shifted to government colleges, then there won’t be any fresh recruitment for these institutions, at least for a decade. If the government is keen to take over the staff of these colleges, then it should take over their buildings and infrastructure, too, so that these institutions can be turned into government colleges completely. Otherwise the government should provide 100% grant-in-aid and other facilities to the staff of aided colleges. It will not only benefit the teachers but also the students.”

In 2019, a similar proposal moved by the Haryana government was not well-received by the government aided private colleges.

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