The UGC is the nodal body that regulates Higher Education in India by manipulating the fund flow. The mandate of the UGC does not exceed beyond dsibursement of grants and settlement of University accounts and yet over the years has inveigled itself into every aspect of University life in India. Even the Ministry of Higher Education defers to the UGC on matters relating to finance, policy, academic appointments, service conditions of teachers and scores of other issues. The result is unmitigated chaos in the field of higher education. An imaginative and energetic Vice Chancellor can ceratinly work creatively within the confines of the UGC system, but by and large the gargantuan bureaucracy of the UGC is so stifiling that VC's just give up.
The fate of teachers caught in the jaws of the UGC is far worse. The UGC is very good at devicing policies that are self defeating. For example a few years back they relaxed the NET requrement for just 6 months obviously to help some interested persons. The NET which is a nation wide eligiblity test seems to have lost somne of its sheen as certain selct centers seem to generate extremely good results. The shift to OMR based assessment from this May exam seems to be a step in the right direction but whether it would test a candidate's understanding of thge theorectical aspects of the discipline is open to question. The concerns of state universities are not addressed at all. Now that the NAAC assessment has become more or less mandatory for getting UGC funding, it is time to make the process of decision making more transparent. The NAAC had an extrmely notorious criminal as its chairman about a decade back and it is time to have people in palce who can lead higher education.
The UGC recently introduced the API scoring system for assessing teachers in institutions of higher education. In no other part of the world do we have such a barbaric scheme of assessing intelletual workers. Instead of encouraging quality teachiung, which the need of the hour, the API scores are apportioned for (a) attending conferences/seminas (b) taking part in consultacy (c) participating in public private initiatives (d) publications and (e) extra mural activities. If scores are givrn for participation in National and Internatiional seminars, there is a strong temptation for teachers to neglect class room teachiung in order to acquire a "participation certificate" usually by proxy. We reached a situation in which faculty members are rewared for everything except teaching which I assume to be the fundamental job of faculty members. Publications are a whole new ball game. Papers canibalised fromn the term papers and seminar papers are endlessly recycled and faculty members get points for this chartade. India does not rank anywhere in terms of knowledge generation and by encouraging "publication" at the cost of teaching the UGC has embarked on a self defeating policy.
Univrsities in India are at the cross roads. Under imaginative leadership such as the one in the University where I teach, the institutions can change for the better. In most Universities education has become purely notional.
The fate of teachers caught in the jaws of the UGC is far worse. The UGC is very good at devicing policies that are self defeating. For example a few years back they relaxed the NET requrement for just 6 months obviously to help some interested persons. The NET which is a nation wide eligiblity test seems to have lost somne of its sheen as certain selct centers seem to generate extremely good results. The shift to OMR based assessment from this May exam seems to be a step in the right direction but whether it would test a candidate's understanding of thge theorectical aspects of the discipline is open to question. The concerns of state universities are not addressed at all. Now that the NAAC assessment has become more or less mandatory for getting UGC funding, it is time to make the process of decision making more transparent. The NAAC had an extrmely notorious criminal as its chairman about a decade back and it is time to have people in palce who can lead higher education.
The UGC recently introduced the API scoring system for assessing teachers in institutions of higher education. In no other part of the world do we have such a barbaric scheme of assessing intelletual workers. Instead of encouraging quality teachiung, which the need of the hour, the API scores are apportioned for (a) attending conferences/seminas (b) taking part in consultacy (c) participating in public private initiatives (d) publications and (e) extra mural activities. If scores are givrn for participation in National and Internatiional seminars, there is a strong temptation for teachers to neglect class room teachiung in order to acquire a "participation certificate" usually by proxy. We reached a situation in which faculty members are rewared for everything except teaching which I assume to be the fundamental job of faculty members. Publications are a whole new ball game. Papers canibalised fromn the term papers and seminar papers are endlessly recycled and faculty members get points for this chartade. India does not rank anywhere in terms of knowledge generation and by encouraging "publication" at the cost of teaching the UGC has embarked on a self defeating policy.
Univrsities in India are at the cross roads. Under imaginative leadership such as the one in the University where I teach, the institutions can change for the better. In most Universities education has become purely notional.
3 comments:
Respected sir,
Its nice to read good discussion on UGC API on your web. I think the correct calculation of API score (giving correct weightage to Impact factor is possible).First let me clear that in UGC guidlines they have mentioned two things. One is “Maximum Points” for a publication and second thing is “API score”. The guidelines is clear that “API score” should be augmented (means increased) and not the “Max. points” for a publication. Many people are fool and they are increasing the “Max. Points” for publication, in actual, we need to increase “API Score”.
To clear this let’s consider one example. If we publish one paper in journal with impact factor 2.5 and there are four authors then division is clear. Corresponding author- 9 points (= 60%), other three authors- 2 each (= 40%). Now augment, the API score, then corresponding author will get 9+ 15 = 24 points (for doing good work and publication good journal), other 3 author will get 2+15= 17 points. In this way, good importance can be given to collaborative work and publication in impact factor journal. These points for augmentation are like incentive points (we give some incentive marks to students if they do good in sports etc. and we add these to student’s score and not in max. marks). I hope you agree with me.
From
Vijay H. Masand
Department of Chemistry, Vidya Bhararti College,
Amravati, Maharashtra, India- 444 602
contact: 09403312628
Thank you for the comment. Your brief intervention did help to clear upsome misconceptions.
The UGC has now scrapped the API scoring system thanks to the sustained campaign by this blogger and others.
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