The Human Resource Development Ministry on Wednesday announced that PhD degree will be mandatory for teachers seeking promotion or direct recruitment to the assistant professor’s post in universities from 2021. The new regulations also make special provisions for recruitment of assistant professors from PhD degree holders who have graduated from a college or university in the top 500 globally.
At present, a master’s degree and clearing the National Eligibility Test (NET) were enough to secure an assistant professor’s post at the college and university levels. The new move is likely to reduce the significance of the NET.
Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said PhD has been made mandatory for recruitment of teachers in universities from 2021-22 and cracking NET would not be accepted as the only eligibility criteria.
Announcing the new regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC), Javadekar said Academic Performance Indicators (API), which was resisted by many as research was made compulsory for college teachers, has been scrapped so that they could focus on teaching.
“The whole effort is to improve quality of higher education and to attract and retain the best talent in the country. All the incentives of earlier regulations have been maintained, but the API for college teachers has been removed.
“Now college teachers would not have to mandatorily do research but will have to essentially concentrate and give better education to undergraduate students,” Javadekar said at Press conference.
However, master’s degree with NET or PhD would continue to be the minimum eligibility criteria for direct recruitment in colleges.
The Union Minister said teaching outcomes would be considered for promotion and if a teacher does research work, it would attract additional points for promotion. “The new recruitment for universities will be only PhD holders. We have given time of three years. So from 2021, assistant professor (entry level position) will have to hold PhDs,” Javadekar said.
The Minister also said that Indian students who got their PhD degree from top 500 universities abroad will also be eligible for appointment in universities. Currently, such students are not eligible to take up teaching jobs in the Indian universities.