Teachers' selection: PhD holders may not be required to appear in NET

New Delhi: In a major move aimed at addressing the shortage of teachers in colleges, the government has proposed to relax the recruitment norms for PhD scholars. According to the draft rules prepared by the University Grant Commission (UGC), the PhD scholars would not have to appear for National Eligibility Test (NET), which is a must for the aspirants vying for permanent faculty post in different universities as per the existing recruitment rules.

It's not that PhD degree holders of any university would be fit to apply for the teacher's job sans NET, though it would be restricted to only those who have obtained their PhD degrees from any higher education institute in the top 500 list of the global ranking. All such PhD holders, as per the draft rules, would need not to pass the NET of the UGC or CSIR to become an assistant professor.

According to the UGC draft rules, this rule would be applicable in direct recruitment of assistant professors in the fields of arts, commerce, humanities, education, law, social sciences, science, language, library science, journalism and mass communication.

The benefit of this proposed rule would be availed by all such students who have obtained a PhD from any institute ranked in the top 500 of QS ranking, Times Higher Education Rankings and Academic Ranking of World Universities.

As per the existing recruitment rules, students who have a PhD from any institute need to pass UGC or CSIR eligibility test to become a teacher in any of the universities and colleges.

the draft rules of the UGC would be discussed with concerned stakeholders prior to its implementation and on if there would be no major changes in it, the rules would be implemented before the new academic session.

Notably, the institutes that made it to the list of Times Ranking – 2018 include Indian Institute of Science (IISc), IIT-Bombay, IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Roorkee, IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Delhi.

Tezpur University was ranked 100th in the prestigious THE list but the rank was shared with University of Haifa (Israel) and Sejong University (S Korea).