About 800 delegates from 200 universities in the country are attending the 11^th Conference of the All India University Employees’ Confederation (AIUEC), being held at Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur. This three day conference began on December 19^th, 2011.

One of the prime points in the agenda for the Conference is the drafting of the submission of a memorandum to the Government for allocation of 6% of GDP for education, along with a demand to protect Indian University Education system from the onslaught of World Bank inspired private investment and FDI in higher education.

AIUEC is firmly opposed to the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill 2010 and demands its immediate withdrawal.

The AIUEC is also demanding UGC pay-scale for University employees on the lines granted to the teachers and for this purpose, is demanding the setting up of a “Pay Committee” forthwith; having a representation of the non-teaching staff employees in the University Bodies, adequate housing, medical benefits, recruitment of adequate staff in the view of the increasing work load, time bound promotion scheme, regulation of the services of the daily-wage contractual workers, etc.

It is pertinent to mention here that with few exceptions, in almost all the Universities in the country while the number of students has increased by 400%, there has been a corresponding increase in the staff strength.

In some cases the strength of staff has gone down or is stagnant. The Government has failed to realize that a sensitive institute like University cannot be run by casual workers and casual teachers.

Non-recruitment of adequate staff and replenishing a part of the shortage by contractual and or daily wage employment is cleverly and dubiously designed to out-source major functions of the universities to private agencies.

This would stunt growth of the Universities and finally augment the incentives for privatization of higher education. This would indeed be a dangerous development for the long term interest of the nation in producing quality man-power which would affect the economy in a significant way.

Without strengthening public financed University, such as State or Central Universities, Agricultural, Health, Science & Technology Universities for higher research and development relevant to the need of the society and nation, talk of the private and foreign investment is counter-productive, meaningless and futile.

What the AIUEC demands today is the effective intervention by the state in streamlining the system of University education by increased allocation of funds and providing a fool proof system of responsible, responsive, accountable and democratic governance in the Universities and do justice to all sections of University communities.

AIUEC urges upon the Central Government and various other state governments to hear the united voice of the University employees from across the country and settle the just and genuine demands and abandon wrong Government policies and settle for inclusive growth in higher education where all sections of the society play a role in strengthening and upgrading the University education, which is the need of the hour.