VCs suggest tri-yearly fee-hike for varsity faculty

Updated on: Monday, March 28, 2011

Recommending a 10-per-cent fee-hike every three years, vice-chancellors of Central and State universities on Saturday favoured short and medium-term employment for foreign faculty at international-level remuneration so as to overcome the critical shortage of faculty in higher education, which needed to be addressed on a priority basis.

Coming up with a set of recommendations at the two-day meeting of vice-chancellors here, eight working groups, set up to deliberate on different issues, said that Indian universities needed, when expanding access, to be ready for internationalisation with regard to both their physical and academic infrastructure.

Universities may be statutorily required to adopt a revision of the fee structure by at least 10 per cent for every three-year period. The critical shortage of faculty in higher education could be overcome, the vice-chancellors pointed out, by providing teaching assignments for research scholars, and short or medium-term employment for foreign faculty at an international level of remuneration.

The territorial jurisdiction binding Indian universities needed to be phased out if student and faculty mobility was to be achieved and diversity encouraged. The universities may be required to go for compulsory accreditation, they said.

Keeping in mind the high level of brain drain, it would be crucial to empower and improve the quality of the country's higher education institutions. Indian universities could also be encouraged to engage with foreign universities for tie-ups between departments, for faculty exchanges, student exchanges and so on. All memorandums of understanding to be signed with foreign universities must be done on the basis of equal terms and reciprocity, they said.

Even as the Delhi University faced difficulties in implementing the semester system, the vice-chancellors strongly advocated its implementation across all Central and State universities along with a credits-based system. Stating that external assessment of colleges/Universities/Institutions was a must, they emphasised the need to strengthen the Internal Quality Assurance Cell in every institution/university/college and to post a yearly report on the university website.

On the issue of patenting, the vice-chancellors felt that research done in collaboration with foreign universities or within the campuses of such universities that might be set up in the country raised questions about patents and the possible erosion of indigenous knowledge. It was necessary to establish the equivalence of degrees and diplomas so they could be recognised abroad and vice-versa.

In addition to calling for benchmarking and ensuring minimum standards in higher education provisions and outcomes at both the State and Central universities level, the vice-chancellors stressed on the need to promote secondary school education as a basic requirement.

Emphasising the need to limit the number of colleges affiliated to a university to just 40 to 50, the vice-chancellors favoured greater autonomy and less political interference.

VCs suggest tri-yearly fee-hike for varsity faculty

More Education news