The new regulation of UGC making PhD optional in the appointment of assistant professors will attract youngsters towards teaching
It’s often said that the quality of higher education in a country rest in the hands of the number PhDs holders produced by her. It is because of PhD scholars we are producing scientific papers and holding the top position in world rankings.
With this objective policy makers give more impetus to increase the number of doctoral degree holders every year. Even during various accreditation processes like NAAC, NIRF, DSIR, NBA etc, more thrust is given to the number of PhD holders in an institution. It is at this juncture the recent order amending the essential qualification for the post of assistant professor in higher education institutions has created confusion in the academic community. As per the new regulation PhD has become optional for the post of assistant professor in higher education institutions.
There is indeed no correlation between higher degrees of teachers and quality of education or research. Many of our great teachers and scientists didn’t have any doctoral degrees. Degrees or academic grades alone cannot reliably gauge a candidate's research capabilities or potential.
However, the new regulation of UGC making PhD optional in the appointment of assistant professors, though will attract youngsters towards teaching, will badly affect the research environment in higher education. The reason for the decline in higher educationquality is twofold.
The primary reason is the lack of interest among the students towards science courses. The second reason is that syllabus followed in science subjects in many universities across the country is outdated and the students who come out from our universities are not employable in the current global standards. Most of the syllabi in our state universities are prepared for the convenience of teachers.
Even though there are provisions for research training during the undergraduate and postgraduate periods, most students and teachers don’t take it seriously. Most of the students depend on private laboratories that prepare readymade dissertation reports without doing any hands-on work, after paying the necessary amount. Even teachers who work in many colleges depend on such laboratories for their doctoral work and publications. The students who come out of such institutions don’t know the fundamentals of research.
The marks received by present-day students cannot be taken as a marker of quality, because of the faulty evaluation scheme followed by many universities. If there is a decline in the pass percentage, the management seeks an explanation from teachers. So nowadays evaluation of answer scripts is just to satisfy the management and students. Students pursue a course that is easy to pass, looking at the pass percentage of previous years. The NET examination in the current pattern evaluates the student solely based on multiple-choice questions.
Students who are trained by good coaching centres by paying high fees qualify for the NET exam easily. So even the NET examination can’t evaluate the skills needed for a teacher in the higher education sector.
A higher education teacher should be able to handle research independently. While exempting people from PhD, one should restructure the NET examination pattern so that it includes ways to evaluate knowledge, research skills and teaching skills. Also, the question patterns of NET should be changed every year so that influence of coaching centres would be reduced and students from every section of society get equal opportunity. If this is not done it may affect the quality of scientific research in the long term.
(The writer is a science communicator and a columnist)