NET made mandatory for appointment of teachers

The test may soon return as the basic eligibility criteria for appointment of teachers in colleges, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Jan 12, 2007, 01:24:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The National Eligibility Test (NET) may soon return as the basic eligibility criteria for appointment of teachers in the colleges and the universities.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) in June 2006 had exempted NET examination as eligibility criteria for M Phil and Ph D degree holders for appointment, following an amendment to the UGC guidelines.

The decision was based on the interim report of Balachandra Mungerkar committee report on NET examination.

Now, the same committee after deliberations in three zones ---- west, south and north --- with academicians, is considering reversal of its earlier recommendation. If that is done, the NET examination will remain a mandatory condition for appointment.

“We don’t want to dilute the quality of faculty in our educational institutions,” a committee member explained.

But, the NET examination may be restructured in a bid to increase the pool of eligible candidates for appointment in colleges and universities. “The examination needs restructuring as in the coming years there will be a huge demand of university and colleges teachers in wake of implementation of 27 per cent reservation,” the member said.

UGC has notified shortage of teachers to the tune of 25-30 per cent in number of universities including Central Universities.

On Thursday, Mungerkar, member Planning Commission, held deliberations in south campus of Delhi University with academicians from DU, Punjab University, Himachal Pradesh University and colleges from northern India.

“Majority of teachers were of the view that NET should continue to be the eligibility criteria,” said DPS Verma, who recently retired from the Delhi School of Economics.

The committee members were also apprised about the education mafia that has cropped up after the UGC’s decision. “Now, some universities are promising M Phil in four months. In Delhi alone, over 1,000 students have enrolled for M.Phil in a centre of one such university,” he said.

A committee member said that similar complaints have also been received from the other parts of the country. Suddenly, the enrolment in M Phil and Ph D courses has increased in universities with dubious record, he added.

The committee is expected to submit its report to the government in March after consultation with the academicians from Central India in Bhopal.

Email Chetan Chauhan: chetan @hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Follow India news real-time updates and the latest news covered on Hindustan Times, featuring today's critical updates on Sonam Wangchuk Hunger Strike LIVE and more across India.