Assam Edu Dept Changes Working Hours of Colleges, Universities

The education department of Assam has issued important guidelines for the colleges and universities of the state including change in working hours of the educational institutions, reports emerged on Tuesday.

According to the notification, the working hours of provincialized, government and PDUAM colleges of Assam has been preponed to 9:00 am from the existing 10:00 am so that the overall working period becomes 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. The tiffin/lunch hour is scheduled from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm.

The notification further includes the following guidelines:

1. The attendance of the faculty members should be regularly ensured through technical intervention as mentioned in the college service rules. But some flexibility should be provided so that the faculty members can visit the libraries and attend assigned activities within and outside the campus.

2. The stipulated contact hours in teaching and other defined activities should be carried out in letter and spirit. The teachers should be assigned library hours for the students and research scholars, which will help activate the departmental libraries.

3. Interactive research hours for faculty members should be a total of four hours on two weekdays.

4. Examination, both internal as well as external, should be taken seriously. There should be a definite model for conducting internal examinations and returning evaluated scripts within a stipulated time frame. The evaluation of the scripts of the external examination and declaration of the results should also be completed timely. Defaulters need to be made accountable.

5. The fellowship holders for research are designated as researcher-cum-teaching assistant. Six hours may be allotted as teaching hours in a week to the fellowship holding research scholars which shall enable the departments to implement UG-PG integrated courses in the affiliating University campus.

6. Internal assessment and consultation with the students: Answer scripts need to be checked and returned to the students within 7 days of examination.

7. Results of the semester examination: The evaluation of the answer scripts is to be completed within 15 days from the date of completion of the examination, and the result should be published within one month.

8. Mentoring of the students: There must be an appraisal meeting on mentoring of students once a month. Report on these appraisal meetings as part of the Academic Module should be uploaded to the Samarth Gov portal.

9. Samarth Gov will be used for Documentation: The ranking of Colleges, whether NIRF or NAAC, depends on documentation. Therefore, proper documentation of all the activities should be taken care of.

Meanwhile, the workloads of the Head of the Department/IQAC coordinator, associate professor and assistant professor have also been stated in the notice. Information on the workload assigned for the odd semester, starting from August, against each of the teachers, should be uploaded along with class routine and administrative responsibilities if any.

Also Read: Seven Colleges of Assam to be Upgraded to ‘Universities’