‘PhD students must teach’

To meet the demand for teachers in higher education, the Planning Commission has sought reforms including mandatory under-graduate and optional post-graduate teaching assignments for all Ph.D students.

To meet the demand for teachers in higher education, the Planning Commission has sought reforms including mandatory under-graduate and optional post-graduate teaching assignments for all Ph.D students.

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The commission’s mid-term review of all schemes implemented in 11th Five-Year Plan suggest several measures to find quality faculty for 1,465 new technical educational institutions to be functional by the end of plan period (March 2012). The new institutions include 30 central universities, eight IITs and IIMs each, 10 National Institutes of Technology and 1,000 polytechnics.

“Ph.D students should undertake undergraduate teaching assignment and conduct tutorials and seminar classes as is the global practice,” said the review, to be discussed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a commission’s meeting on Saturday.

“The PM last year asked to list grey areas in the existing schemes and suggest remedies. The suggested accepted by the government would be incorporated in the existing schemes,” a senior plan panel official said.

The panel wants scientists with Ph.D degrees working in research laboratories of public and private sectors to be employed as visiting faculty, lifting of ban on recruitment in professional courses, higher allowance of retired faculty hired on contract, new vision for old and major state universities and better private participation in research projects.

The commission has also found University Grants Commission action plan for academic reforms as not “comprehensive” because it lacks core elements such as periodicity of curriculum revision and mandatory components such as tutorials and seminars in the semester system.

School Education

The panel has suggested that there should be periodic third party evaluation of the mid-day meal scheme. It wants special schools to be opened under Right to Education Act in slum clusters and make computer education mandatory for all schoolteachers.