Madurai Kamaraj, Manonmaniam Sundaranar, Mother Teresa and Alagappa University Teachers’ Association (MUTA) has planned to organise three-phase agitation against the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University administration demanding better working conditions for teachers of self-financing colleges and the MSU colleges.
Speaking to reporters here on Friday, MUTA general secretary S. Subbaraju said the MSU, which was started in this backward region with the objective of ‘Reaching the unreached,’ was administering six university colleges and four constituent colleges and was about to start one more college at Shanthi Nagar in Palayamkottai during the ensuing academic year.
“No basic facilities”
Since most of these colleges had been functioning without basic infrastructure facilities such as own building, library, laboratory, playground and toilet, for the past several years, teaching-learning process was badly affected.
Moreover, the teachers working in these colleges, who were being denied appointment order and scale of pay as prescribed by the University Grants Commission and maternity leave with salary, etc, were getting a paltry sum as pay with increased workload.
Besides ensuring better working conditions and pay as mandated by the UGC, the MSU administration should concentrate on improving infrastructure facilities in these colleges, Mr. Subbaraju said.
“Working conditions of the teachers serving in private self-financing colleges and self-finance courses are still worse as they are being treated like bonded labourers by the administrations which give them a trivial sum as salary. They are being compelled to work for 20 to 24 hours per week. They have not been covered by any social security scheme. The MSU administration, which has to ensure better working conditions for teachers working in the affiliated colleges and university colleges, has been maintaining an inexplicable silence for the past several years,” he charged.
One-day fast
Condemning the MSU administration and urging it to act against the erring colleges, the MUTA had planned to organise a three-phase agitation – a one-day fast in front of the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University on Tuesday (May 12), a demonstration on the MSU premises on May 18 before the start of the Syndicate meeting and boycott of valuation process from May 19.
