HOW visiting faculty at universities in the country is exploited can be judged from my personal experience. I was a visiting lecturer at Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan (AWKUM), in the fall semester 2022-23 and taught for more than four months without getting a single penny from the university.

After the completion of the courses, I applied for my remuneration and it has been more than six months now, but I have received nothing. I had submitted a complete file which the administration lost twice. It then moved from one department to another gathering signatures and stamps for more than three weeks.

I cannot bear such exploitation and apathy anymore and have sent the university officials an email, telling them how I suffered all along and how I do not care anymore whether or not they pay me. I will beg on the streets, but would not ask anyone in AWKUM to help me out.

First, they keep you starving with the fallacy of ‘you will get experience’ and then they push you into a red-tape process where you are involved in submitting documents and files, sending emails, and making calls. They would tell you ‘your file is missing’ this or that.

I would advise all graduates and young scholars not to fall for this fraud of visiting lectureship. But wait. We fall for it because we need it. Otherwise, why would we go for such a contract which won’t pay you for months in the name of giving you an opportunity to gain teaching experience in a university?

Do not ask me for the details. I might reveal too much.

I would urge the Higher Education Commission (HEC), if someone there is able and willing to listen, to stop this painful and hurtful process of visiting contracts.

Every university has got the resources to be able to keep a record of the classes taught by the visiting faculty, and it is not impossible to make the finance, audit, treasury process simple.

We do not live under colonial administration where we have to get approval of royals. But I am wrong. We have university administrations that fit the bill, and take more than six months to pay you what you rightfully deserve.

So, fellows, learn from a colleague’s experience and make the university administrations accountable. Or they will continue to treat you unfairly and you will not be given what is your due right.

Attiq Ur Rahman
Mardan

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2022