In a major move, University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to remove the mandate of having a Ph.D. degree in order to teach in central universities. This major step was taken in the light of roping in more industry experts to fulfill special positions that are being created by UGC, namely, Professor of practice and Associate Professor of Practice. This can be qualified as a lateral entry in the profession of teaching, the same way civil services fill their post with a lateral entry scheme.
The post will be both full-time and part-time, with industry experts coming from engineering, policy, communications, and, many other fields. This filling will be debarred from the necessity of having a Ph.D. or NET as a minimum qualification to teach in a central university.
This decision was taken on Thursday, 10 March 2022, when UGC chairman M. Jagdish Kumar, along with vice-chancellors of various universities held a meeting to discuss the need of hiring experts who have a desire to teach and have a lot of on-ground experience. The person could be someone with large project experience or can be a great artist. But UGC’s present rules hinder the organization to hire them as registered teachers.
Therefore, special positions were created with no requirement for a Ph.D. The experts will only need to have demonstrated experience in a given domain.
The position can be either permanent or temporary depending on the experts’ and institutions’ requirements. Experts who have retired at 60 can also have a chance to work full-time or part-time, until the age of 65.
Along with the changes in the rules, the UGC is also planning on building a central portal to track the application and appointment of teachers as soon as possible. As of now, there are nearly 10,000 teaching positions lying vacant in institutions funded under the central university.
