MPhil or PhD degrees will no longer be sufficient to secure teaching jobs in colleges as Delhi High Court has upheld the UGC policy of making it mandatory for an aspiring lecturer to crack the National Eligibility Test (NET).
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Manmohan said the test is essential to maintain uniformity and quality in higher education as different yardsticks are followed by universities while granting degrees of MPhil or PhD.
“The results of exams conducted by various examination bodies vary from university to university and they are, therefore, neither reliable nor comparable.
Consequently, to attain the objective of common national yardstick in terms of qualification for every candidate who aspires to be a lecturer and that the quality of education in higher education is maintained at the highest level, the impugned Regulations 2009 were issued by the UGC,” the court said.
The court passed the order on a petition filed by All India Researchers Coordination Committee challenging the 2009 regulation of changing the eligibility conditions for the post of lecturers.
According to the new regulation, only those who pass NET would be eligible for the post of lecturer.
Challenging the new regulation, the committee said this was contrary to the 2006 regulation which held any one who acquired an M.Phil or PhD was eligible for the post of a lecturer.
The court dismissed the petition saying the UGC took the decision after various expert committees have concluded that there are irregularities and wide variations in granting Ph.D./MPhil degrees in various universities.
“We are of the considered opinion that it is not for the court to question the wisdom of the policy directive of the ministry of human resource and development when it is based on the recommendations of an expert committee (the Mungekar committee) and there has been no violation of the enabling act or that of any provision of the Constitution,” the court said.
Source : The Telegraph
1 comment :
The decision of the HRD Ministry to block the exemption resolution for PhDs made by the UGC is hubristic in nature and takes a narrow view of the matter. The decision is self-defeating and contradictory in itself on a number of counts.
Primarily, in the name of improving the standards of higher education, what is happening is that the limited space for excellence is being blocked. Although the new regulations prevent sub-standard candidates from entering academia, since they cannot crack the NET exam, it also prevents brilliant Indian researchers from foreign universities like Oxford and Cambridge entering the sphere of academics in India since they too don't have NET qualification. Effectively, these researchers are encouraged to stay abroad and not to return to India.
Moreover, the current crop of researchers from reputed Indian universities too (like Calcutta University) find themselves not eligible for teaching posts in colleges and universities despite having PhD degrees and an enviable corpus of research publications. It is preposterous to ask these researchers to sit for an exam based on the syllabus that they studied more than five years ago and the syllabus of which has changed much since then. Effectively, these researchers are also encouraged to leave Indian shores.
It is mentally taxing and almost impossible to motivate oneself to appear for a test of a lower level with one's juniors after completing PhD when one has been made to believe all along that one is good enough to get direct admission into a PhD programme and does not need to go through NET exam as it was not made compulsory by UGC at the time of the PhD candidate's registration.
Additionally, NET itself has an eligibility criterion. So when the authorities themselves acknowledge that there is no uniformity in standard of higher education how can a uniform criterion for NET eligibility be justified. A candidate from, say for example Calcutta University, (or even an external candidate who cannot afford regular education), who gets 50% at Masters level exam is better than most first class Masters students from less-reputable universities, but the former is not eligible for NET whereas the less-talented latter are. Earlier the former group had the scope to enter academics by getting a PhD degree from a reputable university and by producing important research publications in peer-reviewed national and international journals. By narrowing the criteria for recruitment that scope is being denied. Thereby assisting brain drain.
Moreover it is funny that those who are already in the system (some with only the Masters degree and neither NET qualification or PhD) have their jobs secured and those who dedicated full time to research during the same period find themselves jobless. And then those who will do their PhDs post 2009 (under new PhD regulations) will find recruitment. And the new PhD regulations are not tougher than the earlier PhD regulations of many universities. For example, Calcutta University followed rigorous PhD rules and the new UGC regulations for PhD dilutes it. Earlier the coursework part of PhD used to done by the candidate independently but now they will be spoon fed in a six month crash course. There will be less of independent thinking and research and more of teaching. So if the candidates under new regulation will be eligible for recruitment then why deny recruitment to researchers who registered before 2009 and some of whom have got their PhDs now.
Instead of separating the grain from the chaff the authorities are excusing themselves from the very activity of sieving. One can easily judge a good PhD by the number of publications he/she has in peer reviewed journals. But the authorities will put a blind eye to such accomplishments. It is a classic example of throwing away the baby with the bathwater and hoping for future procreation instead. But the authorities perhaps don't realize that they are killing the dreams of the researchers as well of the nation.
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