Some varsity teachers on study board do not meet eligibility criteria

Updated on: Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Designing syllabi, recommending exam paper setters, suggesting PhD referees are significant jobs in any university. But at the University of Mumbai, some faculty who carry out these jobs are in the red for not meeting the criteria that have been laid down in the rulebook.

An RTI application by a university faculty has revealed that teachers in some of the most important subjects co-opted to the Board of Studies (BoS) as postgraduate faculty, do not hail from colleges that have PG teaching in that subject. Rules to co-opt BoS members lay down that the faculty from affiliated colleges must have at least 10 years of teaching experience and must be from colleges having PG teaching in the subject.

But, said Rajan Padwal, convenor of the Joint Action Committee for Improvement of Higher Education in Maharashtra, faculty co-opted to seven BoS – economics, Marathi, politics, logic, statistics, chemistry and engineering – come from colleges that do not have PG teaching at all. “We blame the university for not checking credentials before allowing these faculty to be co-opted to one of the most important academic bodies of the university,” he added.

A wrong decision would directly impact lakhs of students’ careers, said a university faculty. It is through the BoS that members are elected to higher academic bodies.

“We are planning to move court against the university. We will also ask the chancellor to intervene,” said Padwal.

University officials, however, declined to comment.

Some varsity teachers on study board do not meet eligibility criteria

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