No end in sight for PU deadlock as 'alternative plan' fails

Claims by the government of having an “alternative plan” and beginning the evaluation of II year PU examination papers seemed to fall flat, at least on Saturday, as major evaluation centres in the city had very few evaluators. As a result, no major evaluation work took place.

Only a handful of lecturers turned up at a few centres. There are a total of 46 valuation centres in the state, of which 20 are in Bengaluru. The PU department had issued orders to Deputy Chief Examiners (DCE) and Assistant Examiners (AEs) to report for duty on Saturday.

Although evaluation work was supposed to begin on April 3, no work has begun due to the protest by lecturers for increase in their salaries.

At Seshadripuram PU College, an evaluation centre for Physics, 500 AEs and 100 DCEs were required to report for work. However, by noon only around 30 had turned up. Even these 30 lecturers soon left, due to lack of work. “We cannot begin the evaluation work with a few lecturers,” said a source at the college.   
 
At NMKRV PU College, an evaluation centre for English, there was a similar requirement for 115 DCEs and 600 AEs. Most of the lecturers boycotted the work and not a single person turned up.
From 9 am to 5 pm, the only people at the centre were the chief examiner, observer and some staff in the college. At the other English evaluation centre in Vijaya College, the situation was no different. Not a single lecturer turned up.

At St Ann’s College, the mathematics evaluation centre, it was the same situation. Only a handful of lecturers turned up.  

Around 20,000 lecturers have boycotted evaluation work. Even after several rounds of negotiations between the lecturers and the government, there is still no outcome as both sides refused to reach a common agreement.

The government claimed that it had an alternative plan using another batch of lecturers – 7,500 teachers from various government, aided and unaided colleges.
The government had, on Thursday, sent fresh orders for these lecturers to report for duty on Saturday.

Heads of the state PU lecturers’ associations said that there was no evaluation work in any of the centres.

Ramegowda, director, Department for Pre-University Education, however, said that most of the lecturers would report for duty and begin evaluation by Monday.
DH News Service