To Sir, with love: Don’t go like this

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">CHANDIGARH: If the number of senior professors who are expected to retire in the days to come is any indication, the future of research at the Punjab University is seriously endangered.<br /><br />At least 70 professors have attained the age of 60 till March 2004. With the issue of retirement age still embroiled in a dispute, most of them are carrying on with their duties in their respective teaching departments till they turn 62 without getting any salary for the last four months.Besides, 50 professors have attained superannuation in the last one-and-ahalf year and have left PU leaving a void of over 100 senior faculty members.<br /><br />But despite a looming crisis, little effort has been made to find suitable replacements for them. The faculty members fear that the blanket policy of non-recruitment by the sharing governments to curtail expenditure would eventually make the university intellectually bankrupt. "The continuity in higher education is a must. There would, however, be a break under this policy as the seniors are leaving and there is no one to guide the junior staff who are being inducted in small numbers. Only three to five per cent of the vacant posts get filled," says Prof P P Arya.<br /><br />Advocating a rational policy of recruitment, Prof S P Gautam said that even though the top brass was retiring, the replacement under rules would be by the junior staff of lecturers or readers. "Though professors are retiring, an equal number of posts of professors are not falling vacant as a majority of them have been promoted from either the post of a lecturer or reader under promotional schemes.So when they retire, the new person would not be a professor but would have to be appointed at the original post held by the person concerned," added Prof Gautam. Fifty-seven teaching faculty members have been promoted as professors since 1996-97 under the PU upgradation scheme and over 200 readers and professors have been promoted under revised payscale scheme (RPS) since 1986.<br /><br />A glance at the key departments puts the issue in perspective. The number of faculty members in the chemistry department has gone down from 43 to 21.<br /><br />In the physical chemistry department, there are just three teachers against the requirement of 12. In the department of chemical engineering, the strength has been reduced from 30 to 18 with more senior professors retiring and in pharmacy department the teaching strength has also been halved with just one professor teaching, while one is on leave and another is over 60 years of age.<br /><br />The department has a provision of eight professors along with readers and lecturers.<br /><br />"The situation is bad here and we repeatedly write to authorities to give us more staff," says Dr Manoj Kumar of the pharmacy artment, sounding disillusioned with inertia over this allimportant issue.<br /><br /><formid=526372></formid=526372></div> </div>