On May 10th, 2016 UGC
published a Gazette Notification that promulgates third amendment to UGC
Regulations of 2010 governing minimum
qualifications for appointment of teachers and other academic staff in
universities and colleges and measures for the maintenance of standards in
higher education. Though third amendment mainly concerns changes in
qualification for direct recruitment to the posts of Assistant Professors and exemption from the requirement of eligibility
condition of NET/SLET/SET for recruitment subject to certain conditions for
those candidates who completed their Ph.D. degrees prior to July 11, 2009, it
also amended Academic Performance Indicators (API) for Career Advancement
Scheme (CAS) promotions for Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors
and for direct recruitment of Associate Professors and Professors in
universities and colleges.
Regulations governing recruitment of Assistant
Professors
Several regulations passed by the UGC in the past have been contradictory
and enigmatic with no logic or justification whatsoever. For example, to ensure and
maintain the quality of Ph.Ds, UGC developed a set of regulations in 2009, and
executed the same with retrospective effect. Consequently newly appointed
Assistant Professors, having obtained their Ph.D. degrees before 2009 , who
according to UGC rules were entitled to get several non-compoundable
increments, were denied the same. They were asked to justify that their Ph.D
was in accordance with UGC Regulations of 2009. One fails to understand how a
Ph. D awarded in 2003 can comply with the regulations framed in 2009. While
excellence and innovation need not be linked to perks, these kind of
regulations definitely have a negative impact on the performance of those
affected.
Similarly when UGC regulations 2009 were
notified, it was mandated that only those holding Ph.D. degrees in accordance
with standards set in 2009 are eligible for any fresh teaching posts. As per
news reports, this rendered several thousand Ph.D. holders across India
potentially ineligible for teaching jobs for the simple reason that when these
people were pursuing their Ph.D. degrees, the rules setting new standards were
not in place. Suddenly their Ph.Ds ran the risk of becoming invalid. Later UGC
had to enforce the new rules prospectively to overcome this anomaly that had
left large number of teaching faculty positions unfilled for quite a long time
across India. These regulations had necessitated that even those applying for
adhoc posts must hold Ph.Ds. It is common knowledge that adhoc posts are
created by universities to attract teachers when they are unable to find
suitable faculty meeting qualifications required for the regular posts. Now
with Ph.D being stipulated for even adhoc posts, universities found it
difficult to appoint any teachers for these positions, even on stop-gap basis.
UGC Regulations 2010 that mandated
NET/SLET/SET for fresh recruitment as Assistant Professors in colleges and
universities and necessitated Ph.D. degree completion in accordance with UGC
Regulations of 2009 halted fresh appointments causing dearth of teaching
faculty in educational institutions across India. Third amendment of May, 2016 sought
to rectify this anomaly by laying down certain conditions for those candidates
who completed their Ph.D. degrees prior to July 11, 2009 i.e., when UGC
Regulations of 2009 were notified. Third
amendment of 2016 envisages that the candidates, who have been awarded a Ph. D.
degree in accordance with UGC Regulations, 2009 or the subsequent Regulations
if notified by the UGC, shall be exempted from the requirement of the minimum
eligibility condition of NET/SLET/SET for appointment of Assistant Professor or
equivalent positions in Universities/Colleges/Institutions. Further, the award of degrees to candidates
registered for the M.Phil/Ph.D. programme prior to July 11, 2009, shall be
governed by the provisions of then existing ordinances/by-laws/regulations of
the institution awarding the degree and the Ph.D. candidates shall be exempted
from the requirement of the minimum eligibility condition of NET/SLET/SET for
recruitment and appointment as Assistant Professor or equivalent positions in
Universities/Colleges/Institutions subject to the fulfillment of certain
conditions like (a) Ph.D. degree
of the candidate awarded in regular mode only (b) Evaluation of the Ph.D. thesis by at least
two external examiners (c) Candidate
had published two research papers out of which at least one in a refereed
journal from out of his/her Ph.D. work (d) Candidate had presented two papers in seminars/conferences from out of
his/her Ph.D. work (e) Open
Ph.D. viva-voce of the candidate had been conducted. (a) to (e) as above are to
be certified by the Vice- Chancellor/ Pro-Vice-Chancellor/ Dean (Academic
Affairs).
Fault
lines in API based performance assessment of teachers
From the very beginning there have been
stark discrepancies in API based performance assessment system devised by the
UGC in the year 2010. While it envisaged to accord API scores for publishing
papers in journals, presenting papers in conferences, publishing books or book
chapters and completing research projects, there was 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 by someone else, for chairing or
co-chairing a scientific session during scientific meetings, for attending
expert committee meetings or evaluating research projects submitted to funding
agencies and for being appointed as a member of editorial and review boards of
various journals. These vital academic activities had been blatantly ignored
while fixing API scores. Though third amendment regulations of 2016 have made
new API allocations for activities like winning a national or international
award or fellowship, yet the all important activities mentioned above continue
to remain unaccounted which is a gross injustice with teachers who spend
considerable amount of their precious time in these significant academic activities.
UGC had constituted an expert committee in September, 2015 under the chairmanship of Prof. Arun Nigavekar,
former Chairman, UGC with a view to improve API score based performance
assessment and make it more rational both at the entry point and during career
advancement of teachers. It is very unfortunate that some of the ambiguities
and discrepancies in API score allocation still persist after the
recommendations of this committee have been notified in the official Gazette of
India.
Under clause 3.9 of the UGC Regulations, 2010 it
was specified that, “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. It took UGC six years to clear the ambiguity and confusion
in this clause. While the original regulations were ratified by UGC in its 468th
meeting held on February 23, 2010, it was after six years and 44 meetings of
the Commission when UGC in its 512th Meeting held on February 4,
2016 issued a clarification that
“the period of active service spent on pursuing Research Degree i.e. for
acquiring Ph.D. degree simultaneously without taking any kind of leave may be
counted as teaching experience for the purpose of direct recruitment/promotion
to the post of Associate Professor and above”. During the interim period of six
years a huge number of teachers across India suffered academically, mentally,
financially for no fault of theirs and had to pay through their nose for the
incompetence of policy makers at the helm of affairs.
UGC brought in second amendment to its
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 of API scores claimed by
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. Thankfully third amendment has scrapped this harsh provision
of second amendment altogether that had done more harm than good to both
teaching and research, much
to the relief and respite of suffering university teachers whose promotions
were held up for several years on this account. A good riddance indeed! Third
amendment has retained only one ceiling under category III(E)ii for invited
lectures and oral presentations. The API score under this sub-category has been
restricted to 20% of the minimum score fixed for Category III for any
assessment period. The quantification of
teachers’ performance using such stringent criteria has actually 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.
Increase in weekly
teaching workload
Previously UGC Regulations of 2010 had specified
a workload of 16 hours per week involving direct teaching-learning process for
Assistant Professors and 14 hours for Associate Professors and Professors. These
Regulations had also specified that a minimum of 6 hours per week may be
allocated to research activities of a teacher.
However third amendment of 2016 has specified a workload of 18 hours for
Assistant Professors, 16 hours for Associate Professors and 14 hours for
Professors in addition to 6 hours per week for tutorials, remedial classes,
seminars, administrative responsibilities, innovation and updation of course
contents for all the three categories of university teachers. This abrupt rise
in workload seems to be neither reasonable nor justified. Third amendment of
2016 does not allocate 6 hours per week to research activities as envisaged in
2010 Regulations. However it is mentioned that those teachers who supervise the
research of five or more Ph.D. students at a time shall be allowed a reduction
of two hours per week in direct teaching hours.
It would have been preferable to
allocate a specific time duration per week towards research activities
irrespective of the number of Ph.D. scholars that a teacher is supervising at a
time. 18/16/14 hours per week as envisaged in third amendment includes lectures/practicals/project
supervision, wherein two hours of practicals/project supervision have to be
treated as equivalent to only one hour of lecture. It is beyond one’s
comprehension why two hours of actual contact/teaching-learning process during
practicals or project supervision has to be reduced to only one hour. This kind
of reduction is usually done for the calculation of number of credits in the choice-based
credit system of teaching but not for calculating actual contact hours of
teaching. Further it is not clear why the weekly teaching workload has been
increased by two hours for Assistant and Associate Professors whereas the hours
spent on examination duties such as invigilation, question paper setting,
evaluation of answer scripts and tabulation of results are over and above the
prescribed direct teaching hours and are an integral part of overall teaching
workload of 40 hours per week as per the third amendment to UGC Regulations of
2010.
On May 26th, 2016 Press
Information Bureau, Govt. of India released a press note stating that the Union
Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has reviewed the third amendment
of UGC Regulations, 2010 and issued a direction to the UGC under Section 20(I)
of the UGC Act, 1956 to keep the overall workload of Assistant Professor and
Associate Professors/Professors unchanged and in accordance with earlier
regulations i.e., not less than 40 hours a week for 180 teaching days. It also
directed that the direct teaching –learning hours to be devoted by Assistant
Professors (16 hours) and Associate Professors/Professors (14 hours) shall also
remain unchanged. Thus MHRD has asked the UGC to roll back its amendment in
relation to teaching workload within a span of just twenty days. That reflects
poorly upon the amount of homework/critical appraisal done by UGC before
bringing out new regulations.
Third amendment regulations of 2016 seek
to divide the actual number of hours spent by a teacher during an academic year
under category-II in professional development, co-curricular and extension
activities by a factor of 10. Thus in order to score the maximum permissible 45
API points under category-II, a teacher has to spend a total of 450 (45 x 10) hours
in each academic year of 30-40 weeks duration on these activities that sums up
to one and a half hour each day over and above his daily teaching, research and
administrative workload as detailed under category-I of PBAS. Practically
speaking isn’t it too taxing for a teacher to devote so much time daily to
these activities? Something seems to be terribly wrong with the mathematics of
API calculation. It is pertinent to mention that as per UGC Regulations of
2010, there have to be a minimum of 30 weeks of actual teaching in a 6-day
week, another 12 weeks having been devoted to admissions, examinations, sports,
cultural and co-curricular activities, another 8 weeks for vacations and 2
weeks attributed to public holidays. Since we avail a total of 10-12 weeks for
summer and winter vacations during the year, we can use 40 weeks (totaling 280
hours) for activities listed in category-II that require a total of 450 hours
during a year for maximum permissible API score of 45, given the fact that
total number of hours devoted to these activities in a year has to be divided
by 10.
Silent
regulations
UGC regulations continue to remain silent
about the research guidance provided to the students for their
M.Pharm./MBA/MCA/LLM/M.Ed. dissertations. This is yet another 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. However one
good change made in third amendment regulations of 2016 relates to increase in
API score for each Ph.D. thesis submitted from 7 to 10 and for each thesis
awarded from 10 to 15. This was a much needed change. But the API score awarded
to a book chapter continues to be too meager. For a book chapter published in
an international edition, API score is only 10 and for national edition score
is only 5 and if there are two or more authors for the chapter, this score has
to be shared equally among all of them. So what does each author get, peanuts? Worst part is that earlier regulations in this
regard had clearly mentioned that the score needs to be equally shared among
all authors, but surprisingly third amendment has chosen to remain silent on
that, leaving enough scope for yet another ambiguity and confusion. Even for
the books per se, third amendment allocates an “API score of 30 per book for
single author” in case of an international edition and “a score of 20 per book
for single author” in case of a national edition. What happens if there are
multiple authors in either case remains unclear and has to be eventually left to
the whims of scissor-happy officials at the helm of individual universities.
Instead of using the term “single author”, term “each author” should have been
used.
Anomaly in distribution of API score
among first, second and the remaining authors of a journal paper has also been
rectified in the third amendment regulations of 2016. Now the first and
principal/corresponding author/supervisor/mentor would share equally 70% of the
total points and the remaining 30% would be shared equally by all other
authors. However the paradoxical and needless practice of getting papers
already published in reputed journals re-evaluated by the experts at the time
of promotions from state 3 to 4 and stage 4 to 5 has still not been abolished
which is a big omission since the papers that have already undergone rigorous
process of peer review by reputed and well established journals hardly need to
be revaluated again by the experts and this only leads to wastage of time and
consequent delay in timely promotion of teachers, moreso when API score has already
been allocated to published papers on the basis of indexing/peer review by
referees/impact factors and other such parameters.
This time UGC has decided to notify its
own list of refereed journals and publishers with a view to fix the API scores
in a more reliable manner and leave no scope for score allocation to papers
published in paid substandard journals that have particularly surfaced in huge
numbers after API based assessment system came to the fore or to books
published by sleazy publishers. But how comprehensive and inclusive the list
shall be and how much time UGC will take to notify the list remains to be one
of the biggest dilemmas of third amendment since any inordinate delay in its
notification could potentially impede the process of final settlement of pending
as well as fresh promotion cases of teachers. Hope none of the quality journals
or standard publishers are left out in the process. Collecting feedback about
teaching quality from students who have put in more than 75% attendance in each
course as envisaged in the third amendment is a welcome step, however any
likelihood of confounding bias in such evaluation needs to be scientifically
and systematically removed before incorporating that feedback in the
performance assessment of teachers during their promotions. Furthermore earlier
thrust on research at the cost of teaching has also been rectified and equal weightage
has been accorded to teaching and research activities in the third amendment. Other
modalities of UGC Regulations, 2010 and their fall-outs on the quality
standards of higher education have already been discussed in detail in an
earlier article by this author in this very newspaper.
Conclusion
API based performance assessment system
seeks to promote a score-hunting attitude among teachers. It promotes
mechanization rather than creativity. Nobody is against performance-based
appraisal but this should not come at the cost of teaching, which has to be the
primary focus. Teachers working in colleges and universities all over India are feeling stressed and
subdued on account of flaws in UGC regulations particularly API based assessment
system since these flaws are posing a serious threat to their academic progress
and are demoralizing them besides leading to unhealthy competition in
educational institutions. 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. MHRD, UGC and the universities need to take all possible
measures, initiatives and urgent steps to rectify the errors in UGC
regulations, remove all ambiguities, discrepancies, anomalies and confusions in
them so that they do not become an unnecessary hurdle in the promotion of
teachers. UGC Regulations, 2010 on the whole need to overhauled altogether.
