Odisha HRD

The proposed 12 new Central universities, which received the Union Cabinet’s nod on Friday, should be set up in backward regions of the respective states to meet the collective aspirations of people, academicians have said.
Such a move would lead to socio-economic integration of the regions and give the traditionally deprived ones a unique opportunity to compete with confidence at the national level, they said.

The new universities will be set up in Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Orissa and Rajasthan.

Teachers in Jarkhand, Orissa and Rajasthan were especially vociferous in their demand for setting up these universities in backward districts, with a professor of Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, stating that such a move would fulfil the long-cherished dream of marginalised people.

"For long, Orissa has been demanding a Central university. Now, that it has got one, it should either come up in Koraput or in the KBK region," he told PTI.

The Orissa government has evinced keen interest to set up the university in Koraput district.

Optimism was also expressed by the teachers about the proposed 374 ‘model colleges’ which would also come up in educationally backward districts of the country.

Teachers’ institute in the states concerned would act as a catalyst in bringing the deprived students to the mainstream education, they said.

As the UGC-pay review committee has recommended over 70 per cent hike in the pay scale of university teachers, the faculty members would be required to put extra efforts in teaching and research.

Apart from taking general classes, the teachers will have to hold tutorials, guide research and carry out co-curricular activities, Prof G K Chadha, the chairman of the committee, said.

"The intention is that at the end of the day, the teacher should feel that he has done justice to his job," he said.

The practice of dual workload — one for directly appointed teachers and another for promoted teachers — in particular is abolished. All teachers in the category should carry out the same prescribed workload.

The committee said institutions should fill the vacant posts on urgent basis and the ban on recruitment should be lifted immediately.

About contract teachers, the committee has said such teachers should be appointed when there is a dire necessity and their qualification and procedure of selection should be same as for a regular teacher.

There will be multi-source evaluation system for judging the performance of university teachers. They are self assessment, assessment by students and assessment by the academic heads.

There will be several assessment parameters like regularity in classroom teaching, holding tutorials, availability to students for consultation, participating in faculty meetings, guiding and carrying out research and participating in academic activities like seminar.

The assessment should be made once a year and should be made available to the teacher concerned. The assessment should be placed before the selection committee at the time of teacher’s promotion, Chadha said.

The UGC should evolve parameters relevant to universities and colleges respectively for carrying out such evaluations uniformly throughout the country.

The eligibility for assistant professorship will be qualifying NET/SET examinations. However, those posses Ph.D degrees will be exempted from NET/SET qualifications, he said.