University
Grants Commission (UGC) was formally established in 1956 as a statutory body of
the Government of India through UGC Act of 1956 for the purpose of disbursing
grants to the universities and colleges besides determining, promoting and
maintaining standards of teaching, examination and research in the institutions
of higher learning. Academic institutions accept UGC regulations in toto and
implement them in letter and spirit with a pre-conceived notion that the
regulations have been framed by the most veteran experts in the field at the
topmost level after threadbare discussions and after taking a kaleidoscopic view
of the various segments of teaching and research community that are likely
to be affected in a positive or negative manner by the regulations.
To a very
large extent these regulations serve their actual purpose and achieve their
objectives but in a huge number of cases these regulations prove
counter-productive bringing a sense of dismay, frustration and dissuasion to
those affected by their ill-effects. Negative effects are produced as a result
of ambiguities and vagueness of many such regulations that many a times leads
to misinterpretation of regulations and teachers working in colleges and
universities have to bear the brunt of those disparities and discrepancies
whose career is impacted adversely and irreversibly under such circumstances.
UGC Regulations, 2010
UGC
Regulations of 2010 introduced for the first time Academic Performance
Indicator (API) based scoring of teachers’ performance in teaching, research,
publications and extension activities. While at the very onset, performance
based assessment system (PBAS) introduced in these regulations was largely
hailed as a step in the right direction towards enhancing standards of quality
in higher education, a large number of teachers got adversely affected by
several half-baked, vague and ambiguous provisions introduced in these
regulations.
One such
provision pertains to clause 3.9 of the UGC Regulations, 2010 that spells out the eligibility
of Assistant Professors for the open posts of Associate Professors and the
counting of period of Ph.D. research as teaching experience thereunder. It
reads, “the period of time taken by candidates to acquire M.Phil. and/or Ph.D.
degree shall not be considered as teaching/research experience to be claimed
for appointment to the teaching positions”.
This very clause adversely affected the prospects of promotion of a huge
number of Assistant Professors across India whose plea was that “the period of
time taken by the candidates to acquire M.Phil. and/or Ph.D. degree” should
imply the period when an in-service teacher working on substantive basis in a
university was on study leave for pursuing his research degree and not the
period when he was actively teaching in his parent department while
simultaneously pursuing his M.Phil. and/or Ph.D.
This plea of the affected lot in spite of being
genuine was outrightly rejected by the authorities but was eventually endorsed
by the UGC and directions were passed to the university authorities not to
deduce active teaching period from the total experience gained by teachers
while applying for the open posts of Associate Professors. However it took them
almost three years of spine breaking, disheartening and frustrating struggle
moving from door to door, table to table, one official to the other, explaining
their grievance to them and seeking a just redressal of the same. In the mean
time selection process continued unabated and many a teachers suffered setbacks
since they were declared ineligible and were not called for interviews for
these posts. Damage caused to them was irreversible that could not be undone
even by UGC clarification later.
API score based
performance assessment
When
Performance-linked Assessment System (PBAS) based on API scores was announced
by UGC in 2010, it was hailed by all academic circles as a concrete measure to
arrest decline in the academic standards of higher education to some extent and
infuse some semblance of accountability in measuring teaching and research
performance of teachers quantitatively. However today it is widely believed
that the PBAS based on API scores has done more harm than good to both teaching
and research, because of which it should be scrapped altogether. The
quantification of teachers’ performance using such stringent criteria has
pushed teachers into a ‘rat race’ for gathering points for the sake of
recruitment and promotion, and has forced them to mechanically turn into score
building machines rather than concentrating on their basic responsibilities
towards teaching and students.
The pressure
of accumulating cut-off points within specified time frames has led to some sort of commercialization and
mechanization of both teaching and research. This system by no
means promotes any free and critical thinking among teachers. So far it
has had several negative consequences like proliferation of unhealthy and
unfair practices such as substandard
research, spurious publications, publication in paid journals, splitting
one publication into two or more to get more points (salami publications),
publishing books online on fast-track basis with sleazy publishers, outsourcing
paper and book writing activities, to mention only a few, which has led to an
overall degradation in quality standards of higher education. Ever since API
scores were made mandatory, there has been a mushroom growth of hitherto
unknown journals that are always on a prowl to persuade academicians to publish
substandard research on payment basis to fetch them the required API scores.
Moreover there
are stark discrepancies in API based assessment system too. While it envisages
to accord points for publishing papers in journals, presenting papers in
conferences, publishing books or book chapters and completing research
projects, there is no allocation in category-III of PBAS for undertaking peer
review of papers and books by teachers, for attending a conference or
seminar without presenting a paper, for being a co-author in a paper that is
presented in some conference, for chairing or co-chairing a scientific session
during scientific meetings, for attending expert committee meetings or evaluating
research projects submitted to funding agencies. These vital academic
activities have been completing ignored while fixing API scores.
While calculating the API for joint publications by
multiple authors, of the total score allotted to the relevant category of
publication by the concerned teacher, the first/principal author and the
corresponding author are supposed to equally share 60% of the total points and
the remaining 40% are to be shared equally by all other authors. In case a
paper has three authors and it carries a total of 10 points, as per this regulation 3 points each will go to the
first and second author and the remaining 4 points will go to the third author
who is neither the main researcher nor his supervisor but has contributed in
some way in that research. Such irrational distribution of scores makes a
mockery of this entire system and reflects the myopic vision of the people who
have designed and developed it.
Therefore present
API based PBAS seeks to promote a score-hunting attitude among teachers. It
promotes mechanization rather than creativity. Teachers working in colleges and
universities across the country are feeling stressed and subdued on account of
flaws in UGC regulations particularly API based PBAS since these flaws are
posing a serious threat to their academic progress and are demoralizing them
besides leading to unhealthy competition in educational institutions.
Second amendment and capping of API scores
UGC brought in second amendment to the UGC Regulations
of 2010 in June, 2013 only to add more ambiguity, confusion and chaos to the already
existing vague regulations. This time UGC introduced capping to calculate the
total API score claim of the applicants for direct recruitment as well as CAS
(career advancement scheme) promotions under various sub-categories of Category
III of PBAS (performance based assessment system). These sub-categories include
research papers, books, research projects, research guidance, conference and
seminar attendance. However it clearly
specified that the capping shall be calculated in relation to the total API
score claimed by the candidates.
Publication in
journals has a higher cap than the publication of books that may be favorable
for science streams but not for other disciplines like humanities and
languages. This leads to further discrepancies in the evaluation using a common
yardstick for all streams across the board irrespective of whether the institute is primarily a
teaching or a research centre, whether the centre is policy or practice
oriented one, whether it is engaged in lab or field related work. Effectively, a teacher
has to forego a lot of hard earned points in his own areas of strength due to
the application of these caps. Furthermore going by the logic of these
new Regulations, it is seldom possible for a newly recruited Assistant
Professor to score a minimum percentage of API score in each sub-category within a short span of four years after his first
appointment when he has hardly been approved as a
research guide by the University BORS, thereby making it almost impossible for
any new recruit to get his promotion as per the established timeline of UGC
Regulations, 2010. Further it is not easy for the faculty
members working in non-teaching departments and research centres to fulfill all
the requirements as are laid down under the new amendment.
Ironically,
research projects undertaken by the teachers have a higher cap and are placed
above research guidance. This damages teachers' interests quite often since many a times funding agencies are running short of funds and can't approve project proposals of all the teachers evidenced by the fact that the new union government at the centre has slashed this budget by a whopping 20% for some unknown reasons. Further, the restriction of research supervision to
one hour per student per week is detrimental to the academic interests of the
research based institutions since that is just not enough to do justice with a
scholar. Guidelines are also silent about the research guidance provided to the
students for their M.Pharm./MBA/MCA/LLM dissertations. This is gross injustice
to such supervisors who have to supervise several PG scholars every year for
their year-long research projects that culminate in compilation of a
dissertation and at the end of the day no weightage is given to these supervisors. This is quite discouraging and demoralizing for such supervisors
moreso in light of the fact that in some of these subjects like M.Pharm. there
is no M.Phil. and therefore PG dissertation is as good as M.Phil. dissertation.
This anomaly needs to be rectified in its right earnest.
Second
amendment notification clearly mentions that the capping shall be calculated in
relation to the total API score claimed by the candidates. In one of the tables showing break-up percentage capping of various sub-categories, it clearly reads, “CAP AS % OF API
CUMULATIVE SCORE IN APPLICATION”. It doesn’t say cap as % of API in each
sub-category, it says cumulative score in the whole application meaning total
API claim of the applicant in all sub-categories clubbed together. However once again
it is being misinterpreted by many across India by taking the given cap as
minimum and mandatory percentage of the API points required to be scored by the
teachers in each sub-category of category-III whereas word “cap” clearly
specifies it as a “ceiling” or the “maximum” of cumulative API score claimed by
the applicant. Therefore in essence this amendment is meant to prevent the
applicants from claiming a score under various sub-categories of Category III
beyond a specified “Cap”, “Ceiling” or “Maximum” score. Thus most appropriate
interpretation of the second amendment is to calculate caps in various
sub-categories of category III in relation to the total API score claimed by
the applicant in all the sub-categories clubbed together and to treat the cap
as maximum limit of API score that an applicant can claim in each sub-category
rather than the minimum or mandatory percentage that he has to score.
When the caps
provided under Category I and II are not taken as minimum points required to be
scored by the applicants there is no justification that under Category III they
should be perceived as minimum percentage required to be scored. It is
astonishing that in case of Category I and II UGC has directly used the words
“maximum score” but in case of Category III it has used the word “capping” instead
of “maximum” not realizing that even such words are liable to misinterpretation
in Indian settings with a potential to compound the confusion to the detriment
of the applicants. In order to avoid further damage to the careers of many a
teachers on account of misinterpretation of this word, there is need to
understand, interpret and implement the regulation in its true essence without
leaving any room for miscalculation that has a potential to mar the prospects
of promotion and growth of a vast number of teachers because going by the other
interpretation of this statute, very few teachers would be able to fulfill the
requirement and a large number of them would be left in lurch in spite of
having an excellent total API score under all the three categories clubbed
together.
Service length of College and University teachers
There is huge
disparity and discrepancy in the service length as well as the salary packages
as a teacher moves from Assistant Professor cadre to Associate Professor and
then to Professor cadre. Lot of injustice is meted out to the junior cadre with
a hike of just 1000 rupees from stage 1 to 2 and from stage 2 to 3 followed by
a quantum leap of around 50 to 100% hike in the salary from stage 3 to 4
depending upon the service length of the aspirant. Till stage 3 salary gap is
too narrow and beyond that it is too wide. Opposite of this is true in case of
service length.
Career
advancement scheme that is presently in vogue encompasses 12+3 formula as per which it takes
around 12 to 16 years to move from Assistant Professor to the designation of an
Associate Professor but only three years thereafter to become a Professor, which is totally inequitable, irrational
and unjust. There is need to end this discriminative scheme and switch over to
the more rational 9+6 formula or even better 9+3 scheme as the seventh pay
commission formulates its recommendations in near future. This will bring some
uniformity and remove discrimination and disparity in the scheme. Entire
zeal, enthusiasm and motivation of an Assistant Professor gets killed by this
unreasonable promotion system and it not only breeds inertia but corruption
too. By incorporating API score based assessment and its capping, entire brunt
is borne by the Assistant Professor for whom it becomes even more difficult
even after 14 years to dream of becoming an Associate Professor since the
parameters are very stringent that are only made worse by their
misinterpretation.
In the year 2012, in a major policy decision, J&K government relaxed
promotional norms of doctors working in the Medical Education Department. As
per the amendment, promotions of doctors will follow 3+3+3 scheme instead of
earlier 3+5+5 formula from the post of lecturer to assistant professor to
associate professor to professor, thus reducing the total time span to become a
professor from 13 to only 8 years. However in case of University teachers
promotions are only getting delayed with every new regulation coming into
force. Several expert committees at the central level
have recommended reversal of this unreasonable formula of UGC.
Journal Impact Factors
Another faux
pas of UGC has been the introduction of Impact Factors as means of evaluation
of research activities of teachers. Impact factors were basically designed to
assess the quality of a scientific journal by calculating the number of times
the articles published in that particular journal were referenced or cited by
others. Over the years it has been misused instead to assess the quality of the
academicians. The impact factor is a flawed quantitative parameter as it is
dependent on the number of times a paper is cited. A highly cited paper will
push up the impact factor of a journal. No wonder journals that exclusively
publish review articles rather than original research papers have much higher
impact factors than other journals simply because they attract more number of
citations.
There is
another side to it. Take for instance a researcher who is working in a resource
poor, under-developed setting where scientific, industrial, technological,
economical or developmental concepts, processes and procedures that are old and
sometimes even obsolete to the rest of the developed world, are still as good
as innovations given their backwardness and slow pace of development. If such a
researcher introduces such concepts at such a place with an aim of harnessing
development, streamlining policies and procedures and organizing management
activities, in different spheres, his work will hardly ever get published in a
high impact journal given the redundancy and lack of novelty of his concepts in
rest of the developed world even though his research and extension work might
bring radical changes at his place of work much to the benefit and respite of
millions of people inhabiting there. Further, the number of citations a
research paper will get is dependent upon its life span that increases with an
increase in the number of years after its publication. Thus, a far more
reliable way to appropriately evaluate a research paper is through peer review
by well-known experts in the field who can assess its standards. Let the research assessment go back to where it originally belongs, that is in the hands of peers and experts in that field.
The backlash
against the journal impact factors is not restricted to India alone. It has led
to the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) which was signed by members of
the scientific community gathered at the annual meeting of the American Society
for Cell Biology held on May 16, 2013. Specifically,
the signatories have recommended that the journal impact factor should not be
used as a measure of scientific success in funding, appointment and promotion
consideration. Instead they recommend that the research should be
evaluated on its own merits.
Anomaly and Revisit Committees
University
Grants Commission itself has realized various flaws in their regulations after
it received a flood of representations and complaints from teachers,
researchers, colleges, universities, associations from across India since a
very large number of teachers were getting adversely affected by them and their
promotions were getting stuck for years together. Since 2010 UGC decided twice
to scrap these regulations of 2010. Once during 489th meeting of the
Commission in November, 2012 and then again during 497th full
Commission meeting held on 10 Jan 2014, UGC decided to bring in third amendment
calling for the rollout and revision of caps and forwarded it to the MHRD for
approval on 23rd May, 2014. However the decision of UGC is still
awaiting approval from MHRD even after a lapse of more than a year. It appears
that at the eleventh hour some unknown force, most likely political in nature,
prevails upon the union HRD ministry and gets the decisions revoked.
Many times UGC
had to frame anomaly committees and revisit committees to examine the anomalies
brought into its notice and revise the regulations. Though several anomalies
with respect to pay scales and promotions have been removed by these
committees, however no final decision has been made till date regarding
revocation of these API scores even though recently a high power committee has
been given two months time to decide on the matter while thousands of teachers
continue to suffer on account of these anomalies and discrepancies across the
country. Another committee has been constituted by the UGC on September 3rd,
2015 under the chairmanship of Prof. Arun Nigavekar, former Chairman, UGC with
a view to attract, select and retain talented and meritorious faculty in
colleges and universities who are otherwise getting disgruntled and
disillusioned with the stringent and demoralizing UGC regulations and are
leaving educational and research institutions for greener pastures abroad. This
committee is at present inviting suggestions from all stake-holders on how API
score based performance assessment could be improved and made more rational
both at the entry point and during career advancement of teachers. Hope better
sense prevails on them and they scrap this unjustified system altogether. In
case they leave it to the discretion of the individual universities to decide
the criteria of quantitative assessment of their teachers’ performance, then
teachers at the institutional level have to play a proactive role and ensure
that the criteria devised by the universities are prudent, practicable and
pragmatic.
Tailpiece:
Nobody is against incorporation of quantitative
or qualitative measures for assessing the performance of teachers but they need
to be flexible, rational and just rather than stringent, impracticable, irrational
and unjust. What kind of standards are these that are not only demoralizing the
teaching community but inciting unhealthy competition, infighting, dissuasion
and dissidence among teaching faculty. In this manner desired objectives of UGC
regulations can never be achieved and these regulations will continue to prove
counter-productive.
- Dr Geer Mohammad Ishaq
