Why UGC wants faculty recruitment overhauled
Higher education institutes must have greater freedom to select and promote faculty members
As Indian higher education institutes (HEIs) prepare to improve their global competitiveness and contribute to national development, they must recruit the best talent and provide a supportive ecosystem for their professional growth, interdisciplinary collaboration, and recognition of diverse contributions in teaching, research, and entrepreneurship. Faculty members must further societal well-being by directing attention to socially relevant research, collaborating with industry to find practical solutions, and guiding students to evolve into socially conscious citizens.
Sadly, in the current system of Indian HEIs, faculty recruitment and evaluation prioritises publications and ring fences the applicants within strict disciplinary boundaries. The selection process reduces their academic contributions to the drudgery of numbers. Such a narrow and inflexible criterion dissuades potential applicants from applying for faculty positions. It prevents those already in the system from effectively contributing to teaching innovatively, research, industry partnerships, or community engagement. There is an expeditious need for a balanced approach to faculty recruitment and evaluation. Faculty members will then be motivated to commit to a more comprehensive span of activities that benefit the university and society.
It is no surprise, then, that many Indian HEIs find it difficult to produce graduates endowed with the skills and competencies needed in today’s workforce. HEIs must have greater freedom to select and promote faculty members who have the potential to adopt new pedagogical approaches, blend technology, introduce experiential learning conditions and transform the education system. Therefore, there is a critical need to revise the 2018 University Grants Commission (UGC) regulations on the “minimum qualifications for the appointment of teachers and other academic staff in universities and colleges and measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education”, keeping in focus the objectives of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. To give an example of how antiquated the pre-NEP-2020 UGC regulations are, consider the academic performance indicators (API) introduced by UGC in 2018. Ironically, these were supposed to make recruitment more transparent and measurable.
API was widely criticised as it places excessive emphasis on quantifiable metrics. It uses a narrow checkbox approach to determine the applicant’s academic and research contributions. The over-reliance on API scores has compelled faculty members to solely push in one way or another to maximise their API scores instead of contributing meaningfully to teaching, research, and collaborations, which are the bedrock of higher education.
The disproportionate emphasis on publications — often in dubious journals — has had many unintended ramifications. Chief among them is the indifference among teachers to turn academic research into solutions for industry. Faculty members also lack the passion for exploring entrepreneurship, research commercialisation, patents, start-ups, and industry partnerships, as these skills are ignored during evaluations. We must discard the widespread perception that more research publications make someone more qualified than those excelling in areas like establishing start-ups or entrepreneurship.
Faculty members prefer traditional lecture methods because any creative contribution in teaching pedagogy, technology integration in teaching-learning methods and student engagement in experiential learning is not incentivised. As per existing regulations, candidates with a four-year bachelor’s degree and a PhD are not considered for faculty appointments if they do not possess a post-graduate degree. To keep in sync with global practices, we must facilitate such candidates to become assistant professors as the four-year degree has become the standard in India now.
Similarly, restricting faculty appointments to those who have pursued the same subject throughout their educational progression is a limiting idea. HEIs must not hesitate to select candidates for faculty positions based on their research discipline, even if their undergraduate or post-graduate studies were in different subjects. Current UGC regulations do not permit this. Breaking discipline boundaries will undoubtedly attract scholars with diverse expertise to HEIs. External subject experts in faculty selection committees play an essential role in evaluating the quality of a candidate’s published work, the credibility of the journals in which they have published, or in assessing the applicant’s teaching philosophy, research potential, and ability to bring funding and involvement in multi-disciplinary research. HEIs, therefore, must prepare a panel of external subject experts from leading institutions approved by its statutory bodies. Our HEIs require autonomy and a more holistic process for assessing faculty applications.
Considering the above factors and due to the introduction of NEP 2020, UGC, in the past six months, has comprehensively reviewed its 2018 regulations for faculty recruitment. It will, in due course, make the draft of new regulations public for feedback.
Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar is chairman, UGC and former vice-chancellor, JNU.The views expressed are personal