From
Dr. Kanagaraj Easwaran
LIII 6 C Government Complex,
Luangmual,
Aizawl -796 009.
Email: mekanagaraj@gmail.com
To
The Chairman,
University Grants Commission (UGC),
Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg,
New Delhi - 110 002
Sir,
Sub: Requesting Further Information on the UGC Regulations 2010
Ref: http://www.ugc.ac.in/policy/revised_finalugcregulationfinal10.pdf
I have gone through the new regulation of your esteemed commission for recruitment and promotion of teachers in the universities and colleges. As a citizen of India, I would like to seek the following specific information regarding the new regulation. May, I request you to kindly supply information to my email ID in soft form?
I. Minimum Qualification and Experience for Teaching Positions (Direct and CAS)
The new regulation of your esteemed commission has widened the distance (gap) between the assistant professor and associate professor positions in terms of the minimum number of years service required for appointment (in the direct recruitment and CAS promotion) as well in the pay scale. During the last two periods of pay commissions there was equi-distance between the adjacent levels. On the other hand, in both the terms the distance between associate professor and professor positions have been drastically reduced. Virtually there is no gap between them in the pay scale.
Until now, under the CAS the distance between a lecturer and reader was 9-11 years while under the new regime it will be 12-14 years. But the distance between the reader and professor was 8 years. Likewise in the direct recruitment, the minimum number of years experience required to become an associate professor has been increased from 5 to 8 while the same for professorship remains at 10 years. But the number of years experience required for an associate professor to become a professor has got decreased by 2 years.
In this connection, I would like to seek information from you in the form of answer to the following questions.
• What led the UGC to reduce the distance (gap) in salary as well as number of years experience between Associate Professors and Professors?
• Why the distance between assistant professor and associate professor positions has been increased? (In salary as well as number of year’s experience).
• Why there is increased waiting period for the assistant professors with less salary, lower prestige, and power in the higher education system under the lower tier of the higher education.
• Ph.D. which remained an essential qualification for promotion to the position of Reader in the previous two pay periods has been removed and the selection grade lecturers were promoted automatically to associate professorship (which is more less equal to professorship) without undergoing any assessment process or interview. If assessment and interview are necessary for the people below why not it is applied to those already above. Kindly give information on the rationale for such policy change.
II Exclusion of M.Phil/Ph.D Experience from Experience
The new regulation also has excluded the research experience (M.Phil and Ph.D) from the calculation of minimum years of experience for appointment to the positions of associate professors and professors. All of us in the higher education sector are aware of the fact that for completing an M.Phil course, a minimum of two years spent while for completing a Ph.D at least five years are spent. Further, there is Junior and Senior Research Fellowships are provided to the scholars by UGC, CSIR, ICSSR, ICAR, etc as well as the universities concerned. The scholars are involved in teaching apart from active research.
The questions here are
• Why the research experience as full time research scholar (M.Phi/Ph.D) could not be considered as experience for direct recruitment and promotion (CAS)?
• What is the rationale for this exclusion of this research experience?
• When UGC gives 5 advance increments to fulltime Ph.D scholars (if they have got awarded) when they join a higher educational institution, why can’t the five years experience be considered for the position of associate professor and professor under direct requirement as well as CAS?
II. Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of PBAS with APIs
I would like to seek from your esteemed office certain important information on the PBAS with Academic Performance Indicators (APIs).
The new regulation has stipulated mandatory application of PBAS with three categories:
Category I: Teaching, Learning and Evaluation Related Activities
Category II: Co-Curricular, Extension and Professional Development Related Activities.
Category-III: Research and Academic Contributions
These categories each have a number of APIs, each having a differential score. And in each category there is a minimum score required for appointment of associate professor as well as professor posts. In this connection we require information in the form of answers to the following questions.
• What is the source for the conceptualisation of academic performance in higher education which is measured by the operational framework of PBAS with APIs? Is there any scientific behavioural theory or empirical literature base for that (in a journal article with high impact factor or a high quality book published by international publishers)? Kindly give the details of the literature. If possible supply copies of the same.
• Kindly give the academic profile of the members of the committee which has conceptualised and operationalised the PBA system with three categories of APIs? Specific information is requested on the academic background, subject, specialisation, teaching and research experience, publications of them (especially on their work on higher education, academic performance assessment )
• Whether the draft PBAs with APIs was reviewed and appraised by established scholars in the field of testing and assessment of teachers under higher education system? If so kindly give information on the academic background, subject, specialisation, teaching and research experience, publications of them (especially on their work on higher education, teacher performance assessment )
• On the part of UGC, was there any attempt made to test the empirical validity and reliability of this PBA system taking into consideration the rich socio economic and cultural diversity as well variations in the resource endowment of universities in the country? If any study was commissioned, kindly give the reports and data bases of such (Excel sheets/SPSS files).
• Under the PBAS, the three categories of APIs are weighted unequally and in each category of APIs, the teachers have to secure minimum total scores for recruitment or promotion. What are the sources for such assignment of differential scores and weights? Is there any empirical base for this differential weightage?
III. Exclusion of Quality Indicators of Teaching and Research from PBAS
In the UGCs new regulation under the PBAS, the indicators of quality of teaching proposed in the draft regulation (Prof. Thiyagarajan Committee) such as student evaluation of teacher, expert evaluation of research work have been excluded(please see APPENDIX – III TABLE – II (B). Kindly, give information on the reasons for exclusion of these important indicators.
As a citizen of India, I request that as per the right to information act of Government of India, I may be provided with all above requested information in soft form so that the time, cost, energy will be minimum.
Yours sincerely,
(E.KANAGARAJ)
Place: Aizawl
Date: 11-08-2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)