NAAC Team on JU Visit

The three day visit of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) peer team to the University of Jammu will culminate today. During the first two days the team visited the main campus of the University of Jammu besides the two offset campuses at Kathua and Bhaderwah. The visit is scheduled for three days from 11th to 13th December. NAAC conducts assessment and accreditation of the higher educational institutions that includes colleges, universities and other recognised institutions to maintain the educational and research qualities. It evaluates the institutions on the basis of their adherence to maintaining the quality and standards in terms of educational processes, curriculum, teaching and learning methodology that includes the financial and other facilities provided to the students. The aim is to monitor the educational services. University of Jammu has been catering to the demands of the students in the region for a long time now. It has managed to provide services to the students and has alumni spread across the nation and are serving in various capacities in various government and private organisations. But with the passage of time there has to be diversification and value addition in both infrastructure and the offering of courses can have market value and students are able to gain employment or leave their mark in various areas. Over the years there have been many issues that are common to all the universities of Jammu and Kashmir. These issues are affecting the overall performance of the universities in the Union Territory (UT) .Primary issue has been the shortage of the qualified teaching staff. To overcome this challenge there has been appointment of the contractual teachers who are offering their services to the best of their abilities and at par with the regular teachers. In Kathua campus the MBA course is being run by the contractual faculty and in the same campus, University Institute of Engineering Technology (UIET) is being completely run by the contractual teaching faculty. This ad hoc system has developed its own vices. Salary of the faculty is delayed by months. Besides this, the contractual faculty is offered not even the basic salary that leads to loss of the teachers as their teaching experience is not counted. It means that when they apply for the permanent posts their teaching experience is of no value as they do not get points for it. Reason being that they are getting consolidated salary. Besides that they are given breaks after the end of the semester. This leads to the break of their services. This system has demoralised the contractual teachers in the universities and is creating the bad precedent. NAAC peer team must have noticed this. They must bring it to the notice of the policy makers. So that the culture of ad hoc and contractual teachers is put to rest and the highly qualified young teachers who have turned middle aged over the years while teaching at contractual level. This is gross injustice. This is a process of neutralising the talent of the teachers who are offering their services. Keeping this vicious process in view one is asked why the superannuated teachers are being given extensions in the University of Jammu when they have already served for the stipulated period at various capacities but the eligible young teachers working on contractual positions are denied their due? Why the teaching posts are not advertised at proper time to bridge the gap and filling the teaching posts in time? University of Jammu and other universities must address this issue to maintain the teaching standards and do justice to the contractual teachers. NAAC must underline it.