The Hindu : Kerala / Kottayam News : MGU teachers threaten strike

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Friday, Feb 25, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Kottayam

MGU teachers threaten strike

By Our Staff Reporter

KOTTAYAM, FEB. 24. The Mahatma Gandhi University Teachers' Association has threatened agitation if the authorities failed to rescind the order converting the post of Project Officer at the School of Gandhian Thought and Development Studies to that of Lecturer.

Speaking to mediapersons, C.V. Asokan, secretary, said the decision would open the floodgates of claims by many employees working in the UGC-funded research schemes and would land the university in an anarchic situation.

The appointment of one Roy C. Mathew as Project Officer for a foreign-funded project was later regularised, though the project itself had to be grounded midway, on account of irregularities. On February 17, a meeting of the syndicate took up the issue as a special agenda and decided to convert the post into a teaching post. The Association leaders alleged that those who abetted the conversion also intended to give the benefit of career advancement retrospectively.

Rules bent

``If all rules relating to qualifications and selection procedures can be bent to accommodate influential persons in universities as teachers, it will seriously undermine the credibility of the system and the morale of the teachers and students,'' Dr. Asokan said.

Dubbing the whole issue as a "genealogy of irregularities," Rajan Gurukkal, Director, School of Social Science, said the person involved was appointed as Project Officer for one year for the controversial Gram Swaraj Extension Programme on 28 December, 1994. However, within two weeks days, the post was made a permanent one.

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