Visiting faculty facing exploitation at KP universities

PESHAWAR: Visiting faculty at various state-run universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are facing the worst kind of exploitation with regard to remuneration.

Talking to reporters, several visiting faculty members of various KP universities said that a visiting lecturer is normally paid Rs600 per class in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In comparison, the visiting faculty is paid Rs900 per class in universities at Karachi and over Rs1000 in most universities in Punjab province, they added.

Even if a visiting faculty is given six classes per week, it earns them Rs14,400 approximately per month, which is far less than a salary in a seat of learning for higher education in the country. If this money is calculated for a whole semester, it equals approximately Rs43000 for around four months, which is a very little amount for a teacher of a university, which is supposed to impart higher education to the younger generations.

To add insult to injury, sometimes even the students joke about the payment to their visiting faculty teachers who teach various subjects in the universities of KP. Also, the visiting faculty members at universities are not paid monthly and even the meagre amount that they earn through daily-wage basis of teaching is given to them at the end of a semester.

Several senior academicians have also said that the Higher Education Department of the province should force universities to fix a decent rate of payment to those university teachers who teach students as visiting faculty in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Another problem is that while prices of various items have increased in recent years, the rate of payment for a visiting lecturer is the same for almost a decade or so, i.e. approximately Rs600 per class.