TISS Controversy: Alumni of Women’s Studies (AWS) demands for to reinstate contractual faculty under UGC

The alumni of Women’s Studies (AWS), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), on Thursday expressed their discontent with the TISS administration’s stand on termination of faculty

The alumni of Women’s Studies (AWS), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), on Thursday expressed their discontent with the TISS administration’s stand on termination of faculty and demanded to reinstate all contractual faculty and non-teaching staff under UGC 12th Plan, regularise terms of employment at par with the permanent employees on UGC payroll. 

TISS’s statement of withdrawing the mass termination of faculty released on 30 June received criticism as it has failed to address the root problems and had a lack of transparency on the regularisation of employment of contractual staff.

Urging for the official timeline and long-term planning of regularisation of both Tata Education Trust TET and UGC, the AWS said that the situation of the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies (ACWS) at TISS reflects the changing labour arrangements within university spaces and increasing privatisation of higher education. 

AWS also highlighted the administration is not transparent regarding the status of tenure of faculty members and non-teaching employees hired under the 12th Plan of the UGC, which includes three teaching and one non-teaching member at the ACWS at TISS, Mumbai. 

“The WS centre runs MA and PhD programmes and there are many PhD and MA students, under the faculties, who are extremely anxious with the current developments. The first year MA batch is going to start in a week and there is no direction about who will teach in the current scenario,” mentioned the AWS.