The quest for good teachers

Updated on: Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Any one deliberating on deterioration of quality in higher education always deplores the declining standards in teaching. From an exalted position, many teachers have tumbled down the pyramid basically because of lack of commitment, failure to communicate and an unwillingness to update. At times the impression is that students are smarter than their teachers.

After the boom in higher education leading to crass commercialisation, the University Grants Commission (UGC), yet again, has woken up to the poor quality of academics in colleges and has introduced regulations to maintain standards in higher education by insisting on minimum qualifications of teachers. As per the new regulations, the UGC may withhold the proposed grants from its funds to universities failing to comply with the regulations and grants affiliation to any course of study to any college under several sub-sections of its Acts.

Meanwhile, the Madras High Court has forced the prestigious University of Madras to ensure qualified faculty are appointed as teachers in colleges. Subsequently, the university vice-chancellor G. Thiruvasagam has told the college managements to appoint qualified faculty or face withdrawal of courses from the next academic year. “The university will not give qualification approval if the faculty are not qualified enough for the post,” he says categorically.

As per the UGC's latest regulations, any assistant professor (lecturer) must have cleared the National Eligibility Test (NET) or the State-level Eligibility Test (SLET) or must have a Ph.D to teach in college. The UGC has done away with the M. Phil. qualification after discovering that the teachers cleared M. Phil. in large numbers leading to deterioration in teaching. “One of the main problems is that the teaching is no longer an attractive career for students,” says Nirmala Prasad, principal, MOP Vaishnav College for Women. “The real problem is that the attitude of the students in clearing national-level exams. The number of engineers clearing GMAT and those clearing NET will be the least from the State,” says a senior official in the higher education department. “The students lack in attitude. The main reason is rote learning and the other being systematic lowering of standards of examinations to make it easier for students to score high,” he says.

NET primarily tests the subject knowledge of the student. An interaction with a cross-section of principals revealed that the institutional heads themselves have a perception that NET is a difficult test to clear.

The scenario in technical education is worse than in arts and sciences as most of the engineering graduates prefer industry to teaching, senior academicians say.

Most of the teachers' associations are also complaining. Admitting that the UGC has the right to insist on qualification, the teachers' associations have sought more time to enable the teachers to clear NET/SLET to continue in the profession. Officials admit that even the government colleges are unable to find qualified teachers and therefore are appointing guest lecturers. As two-thirds of the colleges in the country are private and as the pay- scales are not attractive, the teaching profession has gradually lost its sheen.

One of the key suggestions the teaching fraternity is making to the State government is to conduct the SLET exam twice a year like the way UGC conducts NET. Teachers could attempt these exams four times a year to be eligible as a teacher, as a doctorate in any degree could take four to five years to complete.

“After wide-ranging consultations with the vice-chancellors, managements and teachers' associations, the regulations for minimum standards for academicians at entry level and for promotions have been notified by the Ministry of Human Resources Development. If everyone of 4 to 5 lakh teachers can fulfil their basic duty of taking classes, evaluating answer sheets on time, presenting papers and guiding students in research as per new regulations, higher education is poised for a quantum leap,” says S.P. Thiagarajan, the chairman of the committee that drafted the regulations.

The quest for good teachers

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