Siliguri, Sept. 22: Teachers of regular courses at North Bengal University (NBU) have threatened not to teach as guest faculty in the self-financed courses run by the varsity from October 1.

Self-financed courses are those in which students pay for the whole programme on their own, much like courses run by private organisations and unlike the regular government-run courses where the government bears the majority of the fee and students are made to pay a nominal amount. There are 10 such courses at NBU, including MBA, tea management, marketing management and information technology.

?Ninety-nine per cent of the teachers in the self-financed departments are from the regular courses. Instead of giving them due recognition, the university authorities have been insulting time and again,? said Rathin Banerjee, the joint secretary of the NBU teachers? council.

The teachers have taken exception to the vice-chancellor?s stipulation earlier this year that students will evaluate them. In some media reports in May, the vice-chancellor had said five permanent teachers had been suspended following complaints from students of the MBA department, which the teachers say is false. ?We sought an explanation from the vice-chancellor and asked for a report, but he has not done anything,? one of them said.

?We are not afraid of evaluation, but it has to be fair. Such a system of evaluation is impossible in the present set-up that is run by teachers whose main job is to teach in regular courses. The vice-chancellor is out of town and expected to return on September 29. We will give him a day?s time and if nothing is done, we will stop teaching in self-financed courses from October 1,? Banerjee said.

A senior official at NBU confirmed that none of the self-financed courses had permanent teachers as faculty members. Only the MBA course, which charges fees as high as Rs 40,000 per year, has four whole-time teachers on contract basis and the post-graduate diploma course in tea management has a full-time coordinator on contract basis. ?The rest is managed by the guest faculty, most of whom are from regular post-graduate courses run by the university and by visiting lecturers from the industry,? a source said. Each guest lecturer is paid Rs 100 per class, Rs 150 in case of MBA.

?We have heard of the teachers? decision,? NBU registrar T.K. Chatterjee said. ?We will persuade them not to do anything hastily, for self-financed courses will not run without their cooperation.?