MANGALORE: Mangalore University is planning to send a circular, for the second time, to its affiliated colleges asking their managements to pay reasonable salaries to teachers, sources in the university said.

During the tenure of B. Hanumaiah as Vice-Chancellor, the issue of teachers being paid low salaries had often come up for discussion at meetings of the Academic Council of the university.

Inquiries

The local inquiry committees (LICs) of the university had also brought this issue to the notice of the Academic Council. The committees had said that many qualified teachers, who failed to get a good salary, shifted from one college to another, and many colleges had appointed only part-time teachers.

According to the sources, this had come in the way of conducting examinations to certain courses, as the university finds it difficult to select teachers as examiners. This was because only teachers with a minimum of three years teaching experience can be chosen as examiners and such teachers should be permanent employees of the college.

Circular

After the issue of low salaries of teachers figured in the Academic Council meetings, a year ago the university decided to send a circular to its affiliated colleges, instructing the managements to pay a minimum of Rs. 4,000 a month to teachers handling undergraduate courses. For postgraduate teachers, the minimum monthly salary should be Rs. 5,000, the circular said.

Sources in the Association of Mangalore University College Teachers (AMUCT) told The Hindu that the managements of some colleges pay only Rs. 3,000 a month to teachers.

In some cases, teachers get less than Rs. 3,000. Managements of some colleges had ignored the university circular issued by the university and this had affected the morale of teachers, sources said.

Equal pay

A.M. Narahari, president, Federation of University and College Teachers' Associations in Karnataka (FUCTAK), said all teachers, irrespective of whether they were part-time or full-time, should be paid salaries on par with the teachers drawing University Grants Commission (UGC) pay scale. "There should be equal pay for equal work," he said.

A senior authority of the university told The Hindu that the university was paying Rs. 7,500 a month to guest lecturers.

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