Dr. Pushkar's articles on research req. for Indian college teachers producing fake research and reducing teaching quality; historical background of Indian academic research system

Last updated on 5th Aug. 2017

I came across an interesting article that appreciated HRD minister Javadekar's recent announcement of near-future change in UGC/AICTE API (Academic Performance Indicators) to remove mandatory research requirement for college teachers (under-graduate teachers) - Kudos to Javadekar for Letting College Teachers Teach by Pushkar, https://thewire.in/163562/javadekar-ugc-research-college-teachers/, 1st Aug. 2017. The sub-title for the article is: "The research requirement in the API for college teachers was a travesty. All that it achieved was a proliferation of fake journals for college teachers to publish in."

About Dr. Pushkar who is Director of The International Centre Goa (India), from http://www.internationalcentregoa.com/web/about-icg/whos-who/: "Dr Pushkar (PhD Political Science, McGill University) previously taught at BITS Pilani-Goa, McGill University, Concordia University and Goa University." .. "He also writes regularly on India’s higher education and his op-eds and essays have appeared in Asian Scientist, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Wire, Braingainmag.com and elsewhere."

[For background on HRD minister Javadekar's announcement, readers may visit my recent blog post: HRD minister Javadekar tells truth about UGC AICTE academia problems; removes mandatory research for college faculty (but not university faculty); assures UGC AICTE reform, https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2017/08/hrd-minister-javadekar-tells-truth.html, dated 2nd Aug. 2017.]

Pushkar's above article refers to two earlier articles of his:
a) Let College Teachers Teach by Pushkar, https://thewire.in/3617/let-college-teachers-teach/, dated 10th June 2015
b) Strides Ahead in Sizing Up Academic Performance Skip Faculty Performance by Pushkar, https://thewire.in/36677/strides-ahead-in-sizing-up-academic-performance-skip-faculty-performance/, 18th May 2016

I feel that the three articles above give a good picture of UGC/AICTE Indian academia's struggle with mandatory research resulting in negative impact on teaching quality.

In the latest Aug. 2017 article, Pushkar himself summarizes his arguments for exempting (Indian UGC/AICTE regulated) college teachers (under-graduate faculty) from research, from his June 2015 and May 2016 articles mentioned above, as follows:

1. Large numbers of college teachers, even those with PhDs, lack basic training for research;
2. Most teachers are already overburdened with teaching, administrative and other responsibilities; and
3. A majority of college teachers work at institutions with woeful infrastructure and where the overall academic environment is inimical to substantive research.

Ravi: While I have not conducted a proper survey myself of Indian UGC/AICTE regulated under-graduate colleges, my views based on informal discussions on these matters over the past few years with Indian UGC/AICTE regulated college and university academics working mainly in South India, AGREE ENTIRELY with points 2 and 3 above.

As I am interested primarily in good teaching of Computer Science and Information Technology (CS & IT), especially the practice of software development, in UGC/AICTE administered Indian under-graduate AS WELL AS post-graduate academia, and have only some limited exposure to doing CS & IT academic research, I don't think it is appropriate for me to comment on point 1. Note that I have great respect and appreciation for GENUINE Computer Science and Information Technology academic (and industry) research and innovation, and as a software technologist I have applied/used the products/output of such research and innovation, to develop software and to teach software development in Indian industry and academia. But I am NOT INTERESTED in doing such research myself.

The Aug. 2017 article of Pushkar gives a very interesting extract from what it refers to as a widely-cited study (from the USA): The Relation Between Research Productivity and Teaching Effectiveness, by Herbert W. Marsh and John Hattie in "The Journal of Higher Education Vol. 73, No. 5 (September/October 2002)", http://faculty.washington.edu/mpw/ITE05/research&%20teaching%20correl.pdf. The extract is as follows:

It is important not to perpetuate the myth that there is a positive and reciprocal relation between teaching and research. There is no doubt that many would like such a positive relation to be true, and there is a strong conviction that research and teaching are closely linked….Furthermore, a near-zero correlation between teaching and research is consistent with the observation that some academics are gifted teachers and researchers, but that others are substantially better at one than the other, and some are weak as both teachers and researchers.

Ravi: I think the above effectively rebuts criticism that teachers who don't do research will be like drones who cannot apply knowledge well, and so will produce graduates and post-graduates who are like drones who cannot apply knowledge well. Mind you, like Pushkar says further in this Aug. 2017 article, teachers who are not trained to do research or are not inclined to do so, can keep up to date on research (in their field) and bring the new research input into their teaching if appropriate. I think this is like when I was an international software consultant in the Indian software export industry, I used to keep up to date on information about the latest technologies being offered by leading software vendors in the world, in my areas of software expertise, by reading leading industry/trade magazines on it regularly. And many times, I had to learn about some of these new software technologies so that I could provide consultancy advice about it, and sometimes even teach it to software developers. I did not have to do research into these new software technologies myself. Others did that and provided the new technologies. I consumed/used those new technologies to develop or help develop better software solutions for end users.

Pushkar writes, "It is not necessary, in terms of content, to be doing research in order to be or become a better teacher." I completely agree with this statement of Pushkar, based on my experience as an instructor/mentor/consultant in Indian software export industry for over a decade (different from my individual software developer and project lead experience), as well as a teacher of software lab. courses (mainly at M.Sc and at M.Tech post-graduate levels) and technical consultant for post-graduate (M.Tech./M.Sc.) software design & development projects in Indian academia for 9 years (with designations of Honorary Faculty, Visiting Faculty and Honorary Staff). [I also taught one software lab. course, once, to U.G. students (B.Sc. Mathematics).]

Note that my academic teaching/tech. consultant experience of mainly post-graduate students was in a somewhat odd situation. The M.Sc. students I taught software lab. courses were Mathematics students (and Physics students a couple of times) and NOT Computer Science students. So while they were post-graduate students, they could not be viewed as post-graduate students from a Computer Science perspective. And most of these M.Sc. students later became students of the M.Tech. (Computer Science) lab. courses and projects that I taught/gave consultancy advice on. The important thing to note was that almost none of the M.Tech. (Comp.Sc.) students that I taught had a prior academic degree in Computer Science or Information Technology! Further, I believe that it is similar in many parts of Indian CS & IT academia. The M.Tech. (CS) or M.Tech. (IT) student usually has a NON Computer Science/Information Technology graduate (and sometimes post-graduate) degree! So he/she has to be taught some under-graduate level Computer Science/Information Technology subjects, including some under-graduate level software lab. courses, at M.Tech. (post-graduate) level!

The June 2015 article of Pushkar gives some interesting historical background of Indian (UGC/AICTE) academia. It says that in the "old system" there was a clear separation of teaching and research. Colleges and universities teaching at under-graduate level (offering graduate degrees to passed out students) are, Pushkar writes, "the backbone of India’s HE system" (HE stands for Higher Education) with UG students comprising 80% of the total no. of Higher Education students. College faculty (and university faculty mainly teaching UG courses) focused on teaching. In the old system, a few college faculty did research and such people typically got promoted to/hired at PG institutions. But college faculty were not expected to do research with many not obtaining PhD degree or even seeking one.

In the old system, research was done by faculty in PG departments "across state universities, central universities and other central-government funded institutions". The PG department faculty had duties of teaching and supervising PG students (teaching-cum-research).

The article states that in 2010, the UGC introduced the API (Academic Performance Indicators) which made research mandatory for career advancement at central govt. funded institutions. This was also adopted by many state universities and colleges. The API was scrapped for a short time in 2013 but reintroduced (in 2013 itself).

This seems to have been an attempt to increase quality research output from (UGC/AICTE) higher education. Pushkar argues that it should have targeted only PG faculty and not UG faculty. By targeting all, it resulted in proliferation of fake research done only to secure API credit and reduction of teaching quality of UG faculty.

Now that the HRD minister is proposing to remove the mandatory research requirement for UG faculty/college teachers, Pushkar argues that it will allow UG faculty/college teachers to focus on teaching (Ravi: like it was before 2010).

[I thank thewire.in, Dr. Pushkar and washington.edu, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above short extracts from, and many references to their website/articles, on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]