Review of the UGC Guidelines for Block Grant to Colleges (2018)

[Chinmoy Ghosh]

Dear all the Librarians and Library Associations.

UGC recently publish a Guidelines for Block Grant to Colleges 2018. Here Under COMPONENT IV (FACULTY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME) page no.19 , Point no 7 clearly describes that "Librarians not having teaching Experience are not eligible". As a result Librarians will not get any single paise beside regular salary under Teacher Fellowship programme for doing Ph.D./ M.Phil. Many state govt. accepted that Librarians are Teacher. However in such universities also there is no syllabus for Library and Information Science in Under Graduate programmes. So, how can a librarian get teaching experience? Why he/she will not get this benefit. UGC treats librarian like stepchild. I request all the library associations to protest against this type of anomalies.

Thanking You,

Regards,

Chinmoy Ghosh

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Dear Sri Chinmoy Ghosh,

Thanks for your post. As I personally feel, "technically" the UGC's notification is erroneous. I know at least 5/6 College Librarians who before joining as College Librarians, worked in schools as full time teachers & in colleges as part time  teachers. Certainly they never taught Library Science in any of their previous places but they do have "Experience Certificates" of working as teachers. Since the UGC notification does not specifically mention the nature/subject of teaching, these Librarians do fulfill the required criterion.

I wonder what UGC takes stand for these College Librarians!!

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta