The University Grants Commission (UGC) has approved a new policy on teaching-load calculation for public universities so that they can form proper organograms to ensure quality education.
The commission approved the policy at its 167th meeting held on Tuesday.
The UGC in the policy put arts, social sciences, business and law faculties in the general category, and science and technology, medicine and agriculture in the specialized category.
UGC acting chairman Prof Dil Afroza Begum said the policy would play a key role in the recruitment of the number of teachers required by a university.
There were no organograms to ensure that a university ran properly, UGC Member Prof Muhammad Alamgir said, adding that it had been challenging to formulate the policy.
The policy would make sure that each department had the number of teachers required to impart quality education and conduct research, he said.
The policy aims to ensure that the number of teachers at any public university is proportionate to the number of students it has.
The teaching-load calculation policy includes a breakdown of weekly working hours of teachers to help determine whether an institution needs to hire more teachers.
Under the policy, a teacher should not have to work more than 40 hours a week.
An average of 13 of these hours should be spent on contractual activities, including classes, lectures, lab work and theses supervision, while the remaining time should be spent on preparing question papers, checking answer scripts and engaging in research.
Universities where teachers are overburdened will be allowed to recruit teachers.
Teachers will not be dismissed from institutions where they have a lower workload, but the institutions will not be allowed to recruit more teachers.
The policy also says the number of teachers at a department of a public university cannot be increased by more than 20% once it has been revised in line with the policy. However, a teacher may be recruited if five teachers go on study leave.
The policy will now be forwarded to the academic councils of universities. It will be ready for implementation once their recommendations are incorporated.
UGC sources said the appointment of “temporary teachers” would stop once the policy came into effect.