Here is an article, dated Feb. 2013, "Research-linked appraisal for appointments is scrapped", http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130201081111366, and given below are some points from the article and my comments.
"India’s University Grants Commission (UGC) has done away with a mandatory requirement for universities to select and promote academics based solely on a performance index that includes scores for research publications and attracting research grants. The decision will affect more than a million university and college lecturers."
[Ravi: So UGC clearly was putting pressure on academics not only for research publications but also for attracting research grants.]
The article mentions that a UGC spokesperson talked about variation in teaching quality and infrastructure across Indian universities which may have made it difficult for the API (Academic Performance Index) proposed to have succeeded.
...
The article has an Associate Professor from New Delhi complaining that UGC does not have provision for teachers to take up limited teaching loads thereby giving teachers time to do research.
[Ravi: I entirely agree with the point above. By loading academics with 4 courses per semester, lots of administrative & other work, and then denying them promotion because they do not have research publication output or have not procured research grants, IMHO, academic administrators are being extremely unfair, and perhaps even exploitative. Let them lay down the rule that maximum teaching load per academic will be two courses per semester and have a small limit for administrative and other work, make it mandatory for administrators to provide facilities for research, then UGC can make such appointment and promotion rules based on research output. If UGC cannot impose such limits then, IMHO, they have no business to exploit poor academics by denying them promotion or suitable appointment due to lack of research output.]
...
In the article, another associate professor, from Pune, complained about lack of facilities like (easily available, I presume) Internet connected computers in several colleges in Pune, and that it was difficult to do research in such environments.
[Ravi: Is the UGC listening? First make facilities and time for research mandatory. Otherwise UGC has no right to impose such draconian and unfair rules.]
...
The article has a professor suggesting that addressing anomalies in the appraisal system would have been better than scrapping it and going back to the earlier system which rarely considered merit for promotions.
[Ravi: Seems a fair point. Promotions should be merit based. But, IMHO, first priority should be given to teaching quality. I don't know whether serious efforts are made to measure teaching quality like efforts made to measure research contribution. As far as I know, measures adopted by corporate training setups like participant/student feedback, are not used in UGC/AICTE academia, in general. In fact, I would not be surprised if the only way teaching quality is measured in most educational institutions in India is by the exam performance of the students. If many students fail something is wrong with the teacher. Otherwise the teacher is good. It really may be as primitive and simplistic as that.]
...
The article mentioned that the (scrapped) API had certain number of points for refereed journal publications and lesser points for non-refereed journal. It also had points for books published and research grants acquired.
[Ravi: IMHO, ideally there should be two tracks - a teaching intensive track where appointment and promotion are possible with good teaching performance but even with zero research; and a research intensive track where research contribution can be given a lot of importance.]
"India’s University Grants Commission (UGC) has done away with a mandatory requirement for universities to select and promote academics based solely on a performance index that includes scores for research publications and attracting research grants. The decision will affect more than a million university and college lecturers."
[Ravi: So UGC clearly was putting pressure on academics not only for research publications but also for attracting research grants.]
The article mentions that a UGC spokesperson talked about variation in teaching quality and infrastructure across Indian universities which may have made it difficult for the API (Academic Performance Index) proposed to have succeeded.
...
The article has an Associate Professor from New Delhi complaining that UGC does not have provision for teachers to take up limited teaching loads thereby giving teachers time to do research.
[Ravi: I entirely agree with the point above. By loading academics with 4 courses per semester, lots of administrative & other work, and then denying them promotion because they do not have research publication output or have not procured research grants, IMHO, academic administrators are being extremely unfair, and perhaps even exploitative. Let them lay down the rule that maximum teaching load per academic will be two courses per semester and have a small limit for administrative and other work, make it mandatory for administrators to provide facilities for research, then UGC can make such appointment and promotion rules based on research output. If UGC cannot impose such limits then, IMHO, they have no business to exploit poor academics by denying them promotion or suitable appointment due to lack of research output.]
...
In the article, another associate professor, from Pune, complained about lack of facilities like (easily available, I presume) Internet connected computers in several colleges in Pune, and that it was difficult to do research in such environments.
[Ravi: Is the UGC listening? First make facilities and time for research mandatory. Otherwise UGC has no right to impose such draconian and unfair rules.]
...
The article has a professor suggesting that addressing anomalies in the appraisal system would have been better than scrapping it and going back to the earlier system which rarely considered merit for promotions.
[Ravi: Seems a fair point. Promotions should be merit based. But, IMHO, first priority should be given to teaching quality. I don't know whether serious efforts are made to measure teaching quality like efforts made to measure research contribution. As far as I know, measures adopted by corporate training setups like participant/student feedback, are not used in UGC/AICTE academia, in general. In fact, I would not be surprised if the only way teaching quality is measured in most educational institutions in India is by the exam performance of the students. If many students fail something is wrong with the teacher. Otherwise the teacher is good. It really may be as primitive and simplistic as that.]
...
The article mentioned that the (scrapped) API had certain number of points for refereed journal publications and lesser points for non-refereed journal. It also had points for books published and research grants acquired.
[Ravi: IMHO, ideally there should be two tracks - a teaching intensive track where appointment and promotion are possible with good teaching performance but even with zero research; and a research intensive track where research contribution can be given a lot of importance.]
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