Ph.D. necessary for university-level recruitment from 2021: Javadekar

New Delhi, June 13 (IANS) From 2021 onwards, only those with a Ph.D degree will be eligible to be recruited as teachers in central universities, Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar announced on Wednesday.

The step was one of the many announced during a press meet. 

As of now, those who have a Masters degree and have passed the National Eligibility Test (NET) qualify to apply for the post of Assistant Professor in these universities. Those who have a Ph.D. are exempt from NET and are eligible to directly become Assistant Professor. 

The decision, which will come into effect from July 2021, will however not be applicable to college teachers who will continue to become eligible for Assistant Professorship after clearing NET. 

"From 2021 onwards, only Ph.Ds will be recruited in colleges," Javadekar told media here.

"There was a lacuna earlier in the recruitment rules, that Indians who have done Ph.D. from abroad were not considered eligible, but now those Indians who have done Ph.D. from top 500 institutes globally will also be eligible" he said announcing another change. 

According to another decision, the ministry has done away with the Academic Point Indicator (API) system considered during the promotion of teachers at the college level. One of the requirements of the API system was that the teacher must conduct research in their field, on the basis of which their performance was rated for promotion. 

"API based on PBAS (Performance Based Appraisal System) has been removed. There will not be compulsory research for the college teachers. They can do research, but they will not be forced to do it. It will not be mandatory. We want them to focus them on teaching," Javadekar said, adding that the move was taken to improve the standard of teaching at the undergraduate level. 

The promotion now on will done on a different grading system which will involve components to rate teaching and student-involvement factors. 

As per the new rating system, the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) by the faculty members will now be considered for the promotion. 

"MOOCs are becoming increasingly popular. There are 1032 of them now on our SWAYAM platform. ... If teachers have MOOCs lecture, they will be given weightage in promotion," Javadekar said. 

The decision again is not applicable to the university teachers for whom research will remain compulsory for promotion as per the API based PBAS extant. 

The minister also said that the newly-recruited faculty from now on will have to go through a one-month induction programme "to ease them into college environment and learn the art of pedagogy". 

In a first ever such move, he also announced creating the post of Professor at the college level, which until now had only posts of Assistant Professor and Associate Professor.