Jammu, Jan 12: In a major respite to around 2000 youth, Jammu and Kashmir government is contemplating to regularize lecturers engaged in Higher Education Department on academic arrangement.
Informed sources told Greater Kashmir that the Higher Education Department has already initiated the process and was examining the pros and cons of the policy to be framed in consultation with the Finance and Law Departments.
They said that the matter came under detailed discussion in a recently held meeting of Higher Education Department, under the chairmanship of Higher Education Minister Abdul Gani Malik. The meeting, sources said held threadbare discussions on framing a policy for conceding the long-pending demand of regularization of contractual lecturers (academic arrangement basis).
“The meeting decided to seek consent of the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for framing a policy for the regularization of these lecturers”, sources said.
They further said that though the government has already adopted a policy for regularization of contractual and adhoc employees of other departments, the Higher Education Department has no such policy as of now.
Sources further disclosed that the department was mulling to regularize all the contractual lecturers, who have completed seven years of service, and meet certain criteria, likely to be fixed by the department.
Pertinently, for the academic session 2012-13, the department has engaged 738 academic arrangement lecturers in Jammu region and 1176 in Kashmir and Ladakh regions.
Out of around 2000 lecturers, presently working in various colleges, more than 500 have completed seven years of service.
However, the department may also put some other criteria for the regularization. The criteria being discussed by the department include candidates who have qualified National Eligibility Test (NET), MPhil (Master of Philosophy) or Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). “As per this criteria around 300 candidates were likely to be eligible for regularization at the first stage”, sources said.
They said that the department would start the process of framing policy after seeking the consent of chief minister.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 12 Jan 2013 18:30:00 GMT
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