Ph.D mandatory for assistant professor recruitment from 2021

Union Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday announced new regulations by the University Grants Commission (UGC) for the appointment and welfare of university and college teachers.

"Few people choose teaching as a profession and fewer remain as teachers for long, so we make these amendments in order to encourage more to take to teaching and stay as teachers," Javadekar said in press conference.

The perks and incentives provided to teachers as per the 2010 Regulations and subsequent amendment have been retained in the latest regulations. However, the Academic Performance Index (API) based Performance Based Assessment System has been eradicated.

Consequently, college teachers will now not required to conduct researches for promotion, while for university teachers, the promotion criteria will be more research oriented.

A provision for making a PhD degree mandatory for promotion to assistant professor in colleges and for direct recruitment of assistant professors in Universities will be in effect from July 2021.

In a first of its kind, the regulations also introduce a provision for promotion in Colleges to the professor level. Earlier, the hierarchy ended at the Associate professor or Assistant professors.

Another provision for recruitment of Assistant professors in Universities and Colleges for PhD degree holders from a top 500 ranked global university/institution has been made.

The amendments will also appoint 10 percent of existing professors in Universities as senior professors in the universities.

A special category for medal winners in Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games has been made for College Directors/Assistant Directors, Sports and Deputy Directors, Physical Education and Sports to promote sports in colleges and universities.