Mumbai: Directorate of Vocational Education and Training (DVET) held an assessment exam for the first time on Wednesday of faculty members appointed at industrial training institutes (ITIs) on clock-hour basis (CHB), even as it has challenged the Maharashtra administrative tribunal’s (MAT) order in HC on regularising the appointments of those who have completed five years in service.The exam enraged fresh teaching aspirants who have been preparing to take the technical exam to join as full-time faculty. In letters to DVET, they called the exam a “back-door entry” for part-time teachers. They sought to know how reservation rules would be applied if CHB faculty members cleared the test and whether those who fail would be barred from teaching. DVET, so far, has no answers for how it will use the scores of this exam. Concerns have been raised within the CHB faculty ranks, too. For years, these teachers have stood in for sanctioned posts lying vacant. Many asked how a cutoff of five years was arrived at, and “if one department of the state was regularising part-time faculty, would other departments, like school and higher education, follow suit?” Others sought to know if the exam was the beginning of a policy to regularise all temporary staff or was merely a one-off assessment. “If five years of service becomes the threshold, what happens when others cross it —will every claim be honoured? And if some fail the test, will their years of service simply be erased? Most of all, can any such move bypass constitutional reservation without inviting challenge?” asked a faculty member. DVET defended its decision to hold the exam. “While full-time faculty members come through screening and we know their competency, CHB faculty is appointed at the local college level and there is no clarity on the quality of teachers who are entering classrooms and teaching our students,” said DVET director Madhavi Sardeshmukh. Asked if these faculty members would be regularised, she said there was no clarity on what the department would do after the exam and how the scores would be used or even used at all. In 2022, following a govt resolution, 15,489 posts were earmarked for permanent staff and another 5,857 were to be filled through outsourcing. But RB Mote and a group of CHB instructors who have taught at ITIs for long approached MAT’s Mumbai bench. In their petition, they said those who already gave five years of service on clock-hour appointments deserved more than Rs 250 of hourly wages and demanded regularisation and a rightful place in the sanctioned posts. The skills department wrote to the law and judiciary, which asked it to approach Bombay HC after the MAT order. “The department that challenged the MAT order is now implementing it in spirit, hurriedly and awkwardly. It has not waited for adjudication and has gone on to conduct an exclusive test to convert the temporary into the tenured. But it is also a test that may mean nothing,” said a source.
