Visiting faculty in Medical Colleges: Professor to get Rs 10,000; AP to get Rs 8000 for 10 days in Jammu and Kashmir

As per the rules, the honorarium of Rs 10,000 per day will be paid to the Professors and Rs 8,000 to the Associate Professors, engaged as 'Visiting Faculty' for a maximum period of ten days in a month.

With the objective of enhancing the comprehensiveness and quality of teaching of both Undergraduate and Postgraduate students in pre-clinical, para-clinical and clinical departments by the appointment of additional faculty called 'Visiting Faculty' on a part-time basis, these norms are prepared to boost up the quality of medical education in the state which was apparently witnessing several setbacks since a long time.

The notification released by the state health department brings out the following salient features:

• These rules shall be applied only to the teaching posts of the level of Professors and Associate Professors in GMCs.

• The honorarium of Rs 10,000 per day will be paid to the Professors and Rs 8,000 to the Associate Professors, engaged as 'Visiting Faculty' for a maximum period of ten days in a month

• The Visiting Faculty shall be eligible for appointment for a period of two years in the first instance, which shall be extendable for another year as per the requirements or till the available vacancy is filled up under rules

• The maximum age limit to apply for Visiting Faculty is 67 years and the engagement of a person as Visiting Faculty shall by itself terminate on the attainment of 70 years of age.

• The posts of Visiting Faculty shall not exceed 50% of the sanctioned posts of Professors and Associate Professors in any discipline.

• The selection of candidates for the posts of Visiting Faculty shall be made by a selection committee comprising Administrative Secretary (Health and Medical Education Department as Chairman and Principal of the concerned Government Medical College, Administrator Associated Hospitals, Srinagar/ Administrator Associated Hospitals, Jammu and an expert in the concerned discipline to be nominated by the Government, as members.

• Visiting Faculty will be assigned only teaching responsibilities and would not be involved in the administrative work of the Department.

The decision to draft these norms was taken considering the shortage of senior faculty at the government medical colleges due to which GMC Doda failed to bag the nod from the Medical Council of India (MCI) during its 2019-2020 inspection for MBBS seats.

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Speaking to Daily Excelsior, certain sources pointed out that the availability of required faculty always remains a challenge in the Medical Colleges for various reasons. Despite having been established way back, the GMCs Srinagar and Jammu have been facing the shortage of faculty since past and to mitigate this problem to some extent, the Jammu and Kashmir Medical and Dental Education (Appointment on Academic Arrangement Basis) Rules came into existence in the year 2009. With the establishment of new Medical Colleges in J&K, these rules were completely revamped and revised rules were issued. However, even after several other orders issued by the MCI and the state government, the shortage of the faculty remained an issue.

Therefore, the government taking a hint from the MCI rules on visiting faculty and medical teachers has issued this notification which is reported to being a major change in the medical education sector of the state.

Last year, MCI had given its nod to the concept of visiting faculty to strengthen the teaching of MBBS and PG Medical courses at the medical colleges of the country.

The apex medical regulator, however, in its approved proposal noted that this system of having visiting faculties would only be a top-up, over and above the regular fulltime faculty, and such visiting faculty staff will not be counted as regular teaching staff as required under the Minimum Standard Regulations.

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