The UGC’s recent regulation terminating the guideship of retired teachers can only arrest the progress of research countrywide, said MP Ajith Kumar, Kerala State vice-president, Higher Education Wing, Akhil Bharatiya Rashtriya Saikshik Mahasangh (ABRSM). Delivering the keynote address at a seminar on Relevance of Indian Educational Values organised by Bharatiya Vichara Kendram at Alappuzha, he said it had adverse effect in that it deprived the nation of the service of matured academics with years of experience. “Already afflicted with a lot of shortcomings like plagiarism and lifting, the academic research has been a falling camel and the new regulation proves to be the last straw on its back,” Ajith said, “It is the service of the matured and well experienced that enrich the nation’s education and research and this regulation can only make it stoop further,” he said. After all, retired teachers had been serving the educational field free of cost bringing no additional burden to the nation’s exchequer, Ajith said, adding that it was high time the UGC revoked the regulation. Quoting the UGC Act, he said it was totally unbecoming of the Kerala universities to slapdash to implement the regulation though the UGC Act stated that it would take seriously only those violations that diluted the academic standards.