A group of lecturers from the Tribhuvan University (TU) have started their second round of protest against varsity officials, demanding an internal competition to give permanent status to around 1,200 contract lecturers, most of whom got the job through political connection.

On October 2 last year, the TU announced the vacancies asking the contract lecturers to participate in the internal competition.

The university aims to hire around 1,200 lecturers through the internal competition among 1,860 temporary teaching staff who were appointed without any test. On August 24, 2006, the

TU recruited 1,380 part-time and 460 “course contract” teachers as teaching assistants after the then Girija Prasad Koirala-led government had signed an agreement with the protesting part-time teachers.

The government had agreed to appoint all part-timers with one-year teaching experience in a TU constituent campus as teaching assistants.

“This is a clear example of politicisation in TU,” said Kishan Prasad Adhikari, one of the protesters. The lecturers have been staging a relay hunger strike before the TU Central Office, demanding the TU scrap the vacancy call. They also started a sit-in before the office of TU Service Commission on Monday.

Insisting that Clause 4 of the TU Regulation-1994 stipulates the permanent lecturers should be hired through a free competition, the protesting lecturers termed the present vacancy call “illegal”.

“While thousands of competitive individuals are waiting to get into the TU service, the announcement of internal competition has ruined the academic environment,” read a statement issued by the protesters, who are threatening to start a fast-on-to-death if their demands are not addressed.

The protesters have also knocked on the door of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority in a bid to cancel the vacancy and book those involved. They have asked the TU authority to offer a golden handshake to all the temporary lecturers based on their tenure and allow them to sit for the open competition.