WITHIN ONE TERM OF ELECTION: LEGAL PROBLEMS OF VARYING AND TERMINATING THE EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT OF A UNIVERSITY LECTURER

A university lecturer elected for a fixed term rarely experiences the change or termination of an employment contract as a single legal act; it comes as a sequence of decisions, each narrowing the options for the next. Using the case of a hypothetical associate professor over a five-year term, the study looks at reduced and increased teaching hours, promotion following a competition, acting headship, a university merger, parental leave, the end of the contract term, a negative appraisal and a student complaint. For every episode it sets the Labour Code of Uzbekistan against the competitive-selection regulation, draws on solutions from Russian, German, Polish and Japanese law and on ILO and UNESCO instruments, and formulates seven amendments to protect teaching staff.