Research not must for college teachers for promotion

Research is no longer compulsory for college teachers to become eligible for promotion and salary increment as the Centre is doing away with this mandatory criteria to enable these faculty members to focus more on teaching and other student-centric activities in their colleges.

Under the revised regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC), however, the university teachers, unlike their college counterparts, will have to conduct research and also perform well in teaching and other student-centric activities for their promotion and salary increment.

Faculty members, who volunteer to teach students at the government's massive open and online courses (Moocs) platform "Swayam," will get "weightage" for such contributions while being considered for their promotion.

From the academic session of 2020-21, candidates with PhD will only be eligible for direct recruitment as assistant professors in the colleges.

Scores of National Eligibility Test (NET), conducted for determining the qualification of the postgraduate students for teaching jobs, will not be considered for direct recruitment of teachers in colleges.

However, the NET scores will remain valid for recruitment of assistant professors in the universities from 2020-21 as well as for grant of a junior research fellowship.

A candidate with PhD will also be eligible to apply for the post of assistant professor at any of the universities.

Such a candidate need not clear NET for teaching positions in universities.

A candidate to be appointed as assistant professor in any university on the basis of his or her NET scores, however, will have to obtain a PhD degree to become eligible for promotion or increment later.

The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry approved the revised regulations of the UGC on Wednesday.

The UGC's minimum qualifications for appointments of teachers in universities and colleges and measures for maintenance of standards in higher education regulations 2018 will come into immediate effect from the date of its Gazette notification.

" have approved the revised rules today. It will soon be notified," HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters, sharing key points from the revised rules at a press conference.

The revised rules have also opened doors for Indian scholars, who have done their PhD from top 500 universities in the world rated by reputed international ranking agencies, to take up a teaching role at Indian universities, coming back to India.

For any new faculty member to be recruited under the new scheme from now on, it will be mandatory to participate in a one-month induction programme before taking up teaching assignments in a college or university.

"Academic Performance Indicator (API) based system has been removed. A new simplified teacher evaluation grading system has been introduced. The changes have been brought in to improve quality of the teaching-learning process in our higher education institutions and increase the research output," Javadekar said.