Sacked engg faculty now in demand, get hired for a day as colleges eye affiliation

Sacked engg faculty now in demand, get hired for a day as colleges eye affiliation

Nirupa.Vatyam@timesgroup.com

Hyderabad:23.08.2021

Engineering faculty members, who were relieved during the pandemic, are now said to be in demand as several colleges are hiring them for the one-day inspection to get affiliation for the academic year 2021-22.

Colleges are said to be paying ₹15, 000 to ‘act’ as faculty for one day and are looking for ratified faculty with all necessary documents-- Selection Committee Meeting (SCM) record, faculty ID and relieving letter. Messages are said to have been sent out through third-party consultancies to lure faculty who are without pay for the last one-and-half years or so. “Vacancies for M Tech-CSE visiting faculty. Certificate verification. Only a single visit ₹15,000. Only ratified candidates having 2020 and 2021 as relieving years are eligible,” read a message received by some of the faculty members in the state.

Faculty said that a majority of colleges are having openings across the branches and have been hiring thousands of them since the last week to have the required number of faculty members for inspection. “When I called on the number mentioned in the message, they said that they will hire immediately and that I just have to go on the inspection day,” said a faculty member, who used to work in the computer science engineering department at a private college. In the state, there are about 175 engineering colleges, of these, majority are affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTUH).

While JNTUH officials said that about 25, 000 faculty members are working as engineering faculty in affiliated colleges, faculty members claimed that not even 50% of these faculty are being paid salaries and many of them have been sacked during the pandemic. The JNTUH officials questioned why faculty members are supporting managements by accepting their offer for a day. “There is no way for us to see if a faculty member just came for inspection or has been working in that particular college. Faculty should not take up such offers as we go by the data uploaded by colleges on our website and verify the same when our teams go for inspection,” said an official. The official added that if found guilty, the number of seats will be reduced according to faculty-student ratio. Colleges have time till 7 pm on Monday to apply for affiliation with a 100% late fee.

Colleges are said to be paying ₹15, 000 to ‘act’ as faculty for one day and are looking for ratified faculty with all necessary documents— Selection Committee Meeting record, faculty ID and relieving letter

Faculty demand biometric attendance at engg colleges

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Hyderabad:

To put a check on ‘fake faculty’ being hired by engineering colleges, the faculty demanded that the officials make biometric/iris attendance mandatory and conduct reinspection if there are any discrepancies in the faculty details submitted during the inspection and biometric attendance.

They said that in the next one week or so, the technical education department officials or universities concerned should take this step and initiate action against thousands of faculty members and college managements, who are joining in colleges just for one day. “The officials should take stern action against erring managements and faculty as per the All India Council for Technical Education norms,” said A Santosh Kumar, president, Telangana Schools Technical Colleges Employees Association.

Faculty members said that the officials should cancel the affiliation and blacklist faculty members if they are found violating norms.

They alleged that the factfinding committees (FFC), which are inspecting colleges, are not even checking bank statements of the faculty to see if college managements are paying salaries regularly to faculty members and are only going by the count given by the managements. They said that FFC should strictly verify whether the colleges have required infrastructure and faculty and only then grant affiliation to colleges for the current academic year.