University Grant commission is planning to introduce lateral entry for professors in universities and colleges by bringing in Industry Experts without PhD or NET qualification as faculty members.
As per the latest news, University Grant Commission (UGC) has proposed to introduce lateral entry for professors in universities and colleges akin to the lateral entry scheme in the civil services. UGC has plans to introduce a system under which industry experts can teach as full-time or part time faculty members in central universities. According to the proposal, the Industry experts in fields like engineering, policy, communications, among others, will be able to teach as full-time and part-time faculty members in colleges and universities, even if they don’t hold a Ph.D. or haven’t qualified the National Eligibility Test (NET). These industry experts will work as ‘Professors of Practice”.
UGC charperson M Jagadesh Kumar said ““There are many experts who want to teach. There could be someone who has implemented large projects and has a lot of on-the-ground experience, or there could be a great dancer or a musician. But we can’t appoint them going by the present rules. Therefore, it was decided that special positions will be created.”
He further stated that “There would be no need for a PhD, the experts will just need to have demonstrated experience in a given domain. These positions can be either permanent or temporary depending on the experts’and institutions’ requirements. Experts who have superannuated at the age of 60 can also join as full or part-time faculty and work till the age of 65.”
“The new education policy (introduced in 2020) calls for better collaboration between education institutions and industry and hence we have thought of bringing in people from industry to teach in our institutions. They will be most beneficial in teaching subjects in emerging areas,” he added.
These areas include subjects like artificial intelligence, robotics, mechatronics, etc. Currently, there is no provision for colleges and universities to employ industry experts, who don’t have a PhD or a NET qualification.
“We will constitute a committee that will look into the details of how we can introduce this provision. The committee will submit its report and, based on the recommendations, we will forward the idea to the Ministry of Education for their approval. The existing provisions for faculty recruitment will have to be revised in order to include the new rules,” he added.
Once the rules are finalised, there will be scope for industry experts to work as both permanent and visiting faculty in colleges and universities. The UGC is also planning a centralised portal to track, streamline and ensure appointments of teachers without delay. According to the ministry of education, as of December 2021, there were over 10,000 teaching positions lying vacant in centrally
Earlier, UGC (Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and other Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education) Regulations, 2018 stipulates that Ph.D. degree shall be mandatory qualification for direct recruitment to the post of Assistant professors in universities from 1st July 2021. The UGC, in view of COVID-19 pandemic, has decided to extend the date of applicability of Ph.D. as mandatory qualification for direct recruitment of Assistant professors from 1st July 2021 to 1st July 2023. Accordingly, an Amendment to the aforesaid Regulations has been notified in the Gazette on 11th October 2021.
