The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Chief Minister hints at raising retirement age for lecturers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 06, 2007
ePaper

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Chief Minister hints at raising retirement age for lecturers

Degree college lecturers may get salaries on par with university teachers
Lecturers’ demands to be considered sympathetically

HYDERABAD: The Government would positively consider the demand of degree college lecturers to increase their retirement age (from 58 to 60), on par with their counterparts in universities, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy said here on Friday.

“Apart from looking into the demand for extension of retirement age, the Government is also examining the scope to pay salaries on par with university teachers,” he said after inaugurating a national seminar on ‘Role of public-funded educational institutions in new scenario’ organised by the All-India Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organisations (AIFUCTO).

While assuring the college teachers of sympathetic consideration of their demands, Dr. Reddy made it clear that they had an important role in making students pursue education in public-funded institutions to compete globally.

“Time has come for the public-funded institutions to take up the challenge and compete with private institutions in terms of providing quality education to poor students,” he remarked.

Dr. Reddy referred to latest initiatives, such as IIITs, Jawahar Knowledge Centres and 21st century ‘gurukulams’ to provide top-end education to rural students.

Medical colleges

Admitting that there was shortage of teaching faculty in the proposed medical colleges, he said there was a notion that salaries in such institutions were low.

“To overcome this problem, autonomous status is being accorded to medical colleges so that they hire the teaching faculty at attractive salaries.”

Higher Education Minister D. Srinivas said skill development-oriented courses were must along with traditional education.

English language laboratories, personality development programmes enabled students in public-funded institutions to compete in any condition and bag jobs.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail