New Delhi: In a major revolutionary step, the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has decided to recruit only those candidates having a PhD degree for teaching in the central universities. This step will come into effect only from 2021, informed Union Minster Prakash Javdekar at a press meet in the national capital on Wednesday.
Currently the candidates who have a Master degree and have cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET) exam, are eligible for teaching in the central universities universities, with exception for the candidates having a PhD degree to become Assistant Professor directly.
Speaking at the meet, Javdekar stated, “From 2021 onwards, only PhDs will be recruited in colleges.” He added that this has been done to give weightage to the candidates who had completed their PhDs from foreign universities. The Union Minister said, “There was a lacuna earlier in the recruitment rules, that Indians who have done PhD from abroad were not considered eligible, but now those Indians who have done PhD from top 500 institutes globally will also be eligible.”
However, the minister added that the decision will not be applicable to those college teachers who have cleared the NET exam and are perusing to become Assistant Professors.
Briefing the media, the Union minister further said that the ministry has taken a decision to scrap the Academic Point Indicator (API) system, which helps the teachers in promotion at the college level. According to the API system based on PBAS (Performance Based Appraisal System), a teacher’s promotion is based on the research that he or she conducts in their respective field.
Javdekar added that, the decision has been taken to improve the standards of teaching at the college level, as the government wants the teachers to focus only on teaching. The HRD Minister further added that, with new rules in place, the promotion will done on a new rating system – Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) – which will based on the components of teacher-student involvement.
Among the several decisions taken up by the HRD Ministry, the Union minister also announced to create the post of Professor at the undergraduate level, which until had only posts of Assistant Professor and Associate Professor. However, he stressed that the newly-recruited candidates will have to undergo a one-month induction programme, “to ease them into college environment and learn the art of pedagogy.”
Photo Credit: The Deccan Chronicle