DUTA March Against Higher Education Policy: Demands Regularisation Of Over 4,000 Ad Hoc Delhi University Teachers

Protesting against government’s policies on higher education, a march was held by Delhi University Teacher’s Association (DUTA) on Thurday (17 January) from Ramlila Maidan to Parliament Street, The Hindu has reported.

According to the report, Hundreds of teachers took part in the march to highlight the plight of over 4,000 ad hoc and temporary teachers working in Delhi University (DU) under “insecure” service conditions.

Demands of teachers included restoring the 200-point roster, absorption of ad hoc and temporary teachers, and implementation of the reservation system, reports Indian Express.

Delhi Police had put up barricades at Jantar Mantar to stop protesting teachers from proceeding further. The teachers then courted arrest and were detained at Parliament Street and Mandir Marg police stations.

“The government is stopping promotions and pensions of teachers and slashing funds and seats for higher education because they want to move us from a publicly funded university to a private one…” ex-DUTA president Nandita Narain was quoted in the IE report as saying.

Earlier, on Wednesday (16 January), Delhi police had arrested Researchers demanding a hike in their stipend for refusing to leave the Human Resource and Development (HRD) Ministry premises.

The researchers were demanding an increase in monthly research stipend, from the current Rs 25,000 for a junior research fellow (JRF) to Rs 50,000 and from Rs 28,000 to Rs 56,000 for senior research fellows (SRF) fellows.