The guest teachers in Bihar appointed as per UGC criteria in various universities since last seven years have been removed from their posts despite widespread opposition. They staged a protest in front of Bihar Vidhan Sabha on 3 April 2023. These teachers are protesting for the last many days under the banner of Guest Teachers Morcha demanding their absorption on regular posts.
This protest was attended by Sandip Saurav, MLA, who said that the Bihar government is not giving preference to teachers already working on these posts as guest teachers which is very unjustified. Now that the regular vacancies are declared against these posts, it should be the policy of the government to first consider the already working teachers for regular appointments. He said that services of 35 Guest teachers in BRBU, Muzaffarpur and 43 in LMNU, Darbhanga have been terminated without giving them any preference. Soon hundreds of more guest teachers will be removed.
There has not been creation of new teaching posts in Bihar since 1972, moreover, in the name of rationalisation many sanctioned posts were removed in 2012. If the Bihar government had taken in consideration the student-teacher ratio then all guest teachers would have been easily accommodated. Still there is provision in UGC to fill 20 percent extra posts to maintain this ratio. The guest teachers in states like Haryana, West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh have been regularised against permanent posts, the Bihar government could have taken a similar step.
More than thousand teachers participated in this protest which was led by Teachers’ Morcha Convenor Piyush Raj, LNMU’s Dr. Bachcha Kumar Rajak, Dr. Jyotsna Kumari, BRBU’s Dr. Lalit Kishore, and teachers from KSDS Sanskrit Viswavidhyalay, Darbhanga, Munger University, TMB University, BN Mandal University, JP University, Pataliputra University, and Purnea University. They submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister of Bihar. The protest was also attended by CPIML MLAs Mahboob Alam, Manoj Manzil and Congress leader Madan Mohan Jha.
