Permanency or job security is one of the major reasons why government jobs continue to remain heavily sought after in India. Despite a growing public sector, there is cut-throat competition for government jobs because of their nature, increments, security, and benefits. The aspiration for government jobs received a further boost after the implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission in 2016. However, in recent years, one can see a rising trend towards casualisation/contractualisation of these assured/permanent jobs, especially in higher educational institutions.
Both teaching and non-teaching jobs are now increasingly advertised as contractual positions. A person is appointed for a few months with a fixed salary as per a contract. This contract is either for a few months or years and may or may not be renewed. There is an important condition that governs these appointments—the contract can be terminated at any time. This conditional appointment in fact makes these jobs similar to those in the private sector. There are no salary increments, social security benefits or promotions and leave policy.
However, because of the scarcity of jobs, especially in the social sciences and humanities, these contractual jobs become aspirational, particularly in teaching. In recent years, several reputed central and state universities have advertised for contractual positions. The longer the contract, the higher the demand for the job. For instance, for interviews of ad hoc positions (a form of contractual teaching) held in the colleges of the University of Delhi, there would be 80–100 candidates for one position in sociology.
One is expected to have passed the University Grants Commission (UGC)-National Eligibility Test and hold or at least submitted their PhD. Some form of teaching qualification is also desired. In the case of postgraduate teaching in central universities, the candidate is also expected to have research publications of “quality.” This “quality” is often measured through indexing, impact factor, or quartile presence. As such, even getting a contractual teaching job becomes a difficult task, especially for people from marginalised sections. In many contractual positions, affirmative action is not implemented. Thus, there is further exclusion of the historically marginalised groups.
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With the withdrawal of the state from public education, there has been a conscious push for neo-liberal policies and private players in the Indian higher education system. This mirrors what has already happened in school education in India. The rise of private universities has further increased the anxiety of job-seekers. While one can argue that their existence offers more opportunities for job aspirants, there is also a flipside. The more reputed private universities display a preference for foreign (read Western) degrees—especially at the PhD level in the recruitment process.
In fact, many of these universities have special hiring processes on university campuses of Western universities. They want to attract “high-level” faculty; hence the implication that if one has studied in a foreign university, their degree is of a “higher” value. As such, people who have studied in Indian public universities feel anxious about their job prospects even in these reputed private universities. They have to rely on the second-tier private universities which pay less than the UGC-recommended scale and have very brutal work conditions. There is also a commonly held notion that if one has not struggled as a contractual teacher and gained experience for a few years, one is unlikely to get a permanent job. These factors make even contractual jobs very sought-after.
However, there are several consequences of casualisation/ contractualisation of academic labour. Because of the nature of the job, people can be terminated at any moment. In fact, several people have been victims of this casualisation cutting across universities. A recent case that made headlines is from a premier university which dismissed 55 faculty members and nearly 60 non-teaching staff members across its four campuses on 28 June 2024. After a massive social media outrage, they were forced to withdraw the notification and reinstate the terminated employees. But this reinstation has excluded some employees of the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies. This is not surprising as women’s studies as a discipline has faced severe crises in recent years. For instance, the UGC significantly reduced funds for the women’s studies centres in many universities from 2019 onwards. Moreover, several ad hoc teachers have lost their jobs at the University of Delhi after the process of regularisation began in 2022. In fact, teachers’ unions have also not been able to protect contractual employees.
While job loss has a very visible impact, there are several other negative consequences of casualisation which are part of the job structure. There is limited academic freedom and participation in curriculum designing or decision-making. While administrative work, in general, has increased for teachers in higher educational institutions, this burden is also unfairly put on contractual workers. They are entrusted with more administrative and managerial responsibilities than others and most do not have a choice to say no. The teaching load can also be much more for the contractual faculty with little or no time for research. But they are also expected to publish “quality” work to get their contracts renewed or find permanent jobs. Interestingly, many research grants and projects require investigators to be institutionally affiliated. But many institutions do not even recognise contractual faculties. On the one hand, teachers are expected to research and publish. On the other, there are institutional hurdles that make their research work difficult to pursue. Thus, contractualisation of academic jobs contributes to an already unequal field of academic hierarchy.
With the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 across the country, it is expected that the trend of contractualisation will only increase. The ones who are privileged have a choice to study and work abroad. But contractualisation of academic labour is not limited to India alone. We are dealing with a crisis that is a result of neo-liberal policies worldwide. Hence, there is an urgent need to think about the road ahead for contractualisation and its severe consequences for higher education.
This article was originally published in Economic & Political Weekly vol 59, issue 28 and has been republished with the author’s permission.
Rituparna Patgiri teaches at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. Views are personal.