There is an open secret in academia —

not whispered,

not denied,

not hidden,

just conveniently unacknowledged.

Many colleges run not on their “permanent faculty”…

but on the backs of part-time, ad-hoc, guest, hourly, visiting teachers

who form the invisible backbone of teaching.

They earn peanuts.

They have zero security.

They carry the real load.

And they often outperform the very people who sit above them in hierarchy.

This is the underbelly that everyone sees

and nobody wants to fix.

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Scene 1: The Monday Morning Reality

At 8:45 AM, a guest lecturer rushes to campus on his old scooter,

carrying a backpack full of notes he prepared till midnight.

At 10:00 AM, a permanent faculty member walks in leisurely,

signs the register,

and goes to a committee meeting.

Guess who teaches more classes?

Guess who earns less than one student’s monthly pocket money?

The students know.

The administration knows.

Society pretends not to know.

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Scene 2: The Corridor Whisper

A student whispers to another,

“Sir who teaches us calculus is guest faculty.”

The friend replies,

“He’s the best teacher we have.”

They pause.

Because they know how unfair that sentence is.

Talent teaches.

Tenure supervises.

The hierarchy is upside-down.

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Scene 3: The US Parallel — Adjunct Nation

A professor at a community college in New York admits,

“I teach four courses.

I get paid less than a barista.

I can’t afford health insurance.”

Her friend at a university in California says,

“Adjuncts run half the teaching here.

We just pretend otherwise.”

Different continents.

Same injustice.

Same open secret.

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Scene 4: The Temporary Faculty’s Internal Conflict

A lecturer in a private college confesses to her colleague,

“I teach six batches.

I correct papers for three departments.

I mentor dozens of students.

But the day I fall sick,

I won’t be paid.”

Her colleague nods,

“Permanent faculty teach two courses…

and get increments.”

This inequality is fatal,

but familiar.

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Why Do Colleges Depend on Part-Time Faculty?

1. They are cheap labour

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

Institutions save lakhs by hiring guest faculty at ₹200–₹800 per lecture.

2. They demand no benefits

No PF.

No pension.

No medical.

No increments.

No long-term cost.

3. They are disposable

If budgets shrink,

their names disappear from timetables overnight.

No notice.

No explanation.

No gratitude.

4. They work harder to survive

Their insecurity becomes the institution’s productivity.

5. They cannot influence committees

No power,

no politics,

no vote.

Just teaching.

Which ironically makes them better teachers and worse insiders.

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Scene 5: The Irony of Evaluation

A guest faculty member teaches passionately all semester.

His classes are full.

Students adore him.

At the end of the year,

the feedback committee praises the permanent faculty

and thanks the guest faculty “for their contribution”.

Contribution.

Not commitment.

Not impact.

Not excellence.

Just contribution.

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The Emotional Underbelly

Guest faculty live in a strange emotional duality:

They are deeply loved by students,

and deeply neglected by the system.

They give their best because they must.

They give their heart because they want to.

They give more than anyone notices

because they cannot afford not to.

Passion drives them.

Poverty humbles them.

Precarity crushes them.

They live one semester at a time.

One timetable at a time.

One contract at a time.

Every class could be their last.

Every lecture is a performance of survival.

And yet —

they are the ones who carry the true teaching load

in countless colleges.

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Scene 6: An Evening at a Metro Station

A guest lecturer waits for the train, holding a stack of corrected papers.

He looks tired.

Not from teaching,

but from the uncertainty.

He doesn’t know if he will have classes next semester.

He doesn’t know if the college will renew him.

He doesn’t know if he can pay rent next month.

But he knows his students love him.

And that is the painful beauty of the underbelly:

recognition from students,

neglect from institutions.

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The Harsh Truth

Academia survives because guest faculty sacrifice.

It thrives because they overperform.

It functions because they fill gaps no one else wants to fill.

Permanent faculty are not the villains here.

They are simply beneficiaries of a flawed structure.

The villain is the design —

a system built to exploit those who care the most

and reward those who are safest.

This is not a scandal.

It is a habit.

A deeply structural habit.

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Underbelly Essence

Part-time faculty are the unofficial backbone of academia.

But the official system treats them like temporary limbs.

They teach.

They inspire.

They carry entire departments.

They outperform expectations.

Yet they remain invisible

in minutes,

in meetings,

in budgets,

in promotions,

in respect.

The tragedy is not that institutions depend on them.

The tragedy is that they pretend they don’t.