UGC bows to teachers demands, amends API criteria again

Bowing to demands of college teachers protesting against changes made in the Academic Performance Index (API) score criteria, the UGC today restored the direct teaching hours workload.
Higher Education Secretary V S Oberoi told reporters that the direct teaching work load has been restored to 16, 14, 14 hours per week for Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors respectively. This was done through necessary amendments to the UGC norms.
He also held out an assurance that there will be no retrenchment of teachers on account of API and workload criteria including those who are teaching 'ad-hoc'.
Oberoi, who is also a member of the UGC, said the HRD ministry too has decided to approve these recommendations of the University Grants Commission (UGC) which were approved at a Commission meeting today. UGC chairman Ved Prakash andsecretary Jaspal S Sandhu were also present at the press conference.

Giving details, Oberoi said that it has been decided that direct teaching hours would include tutorials, practicals, field work apart from lectures and project supervision.
"Mentoring by Professors and teachers will also be recognised while calculating direct teaching score," he said.

He also said that capping on API was previously introduced through an earlier amendment. Capping has been retained in only one sub category which is that of invited lectures, he said.
The provision of student feedback for teachers will still be there, he said.
The UGC had recently changed the API criteria which had led to continuous protests by teachers body as it was feared they could lead to retrenchement and were also called not academic friendly.

As teachers' protests continued, the HRD ministry is learnt to have been keen to resolve the issue as it was impacting academic activity, sources said.