The University Grants Commission (UGC) has brought out a new set of regulations to alter the conditions for recruitment and promotion of college and university teachers, so as to make universities more focussed on research and colleges on the teaching-learning process.
For the first time, requirements for promotions — measured through the API points till now, but to be measured by grades, like satisfactory, good and very good, in future — have been made different for college and university teachers.
While research will no longer be mandatory for college teachers for promotion, university promotions will offer weightage to research done. College teachers will be graded on teaching rather than research.
However, college teachers can still do research and earn higher grades for it.
An option
However, this won’t be mandatory, for they can earn grades for other activities too — like social work, helping in adoption of a village, helping students in extra-curricular activities, contributing teaching material to Swayam, the MOOCS platform for online material.
“A college teacher applying for a job in a university department will, however, have to show research output,” said a senior official of the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
Teaching hours
The regulations, said an MHRD official, had also made teaching hours flexible. “There will be a relaxation of two hours per week in teaching hours for teachers actively involved in extension activities and research,” said the official.
In what can help further the careers of college teachers, they will be able to become professors now. Till now, a college teacher could not rise above the rank of associate professor, the professor post being limited to university departments.
The new regulations for recruitment have changed recruitment conditions with effect from July 1, 2021. From this date, a Ph.D degree will be mandatory for recruitment as assistant professor at the university level, making UGC/NET irrelevant as a condition for university teachers.
However, to become an assistant professor in a college, the requirement remains the same: Ph.D or NET plus a master’s degree. However, for promotion to the post of associate professor, a Ph.D will be mandatory even at the college level.
Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said Indians who had been awarded a doctoral degree from any of the top 500 global universities would be eligible to teach in Indian universities without the requirement of any equivalence certificate or NET as soon as the regulations are notified.