Candidates for recruitment as assistant professors this year will not be required to have a PhD. The Centre has amended University Grants Commission (UGC) regulations that PhD not Compulsory for Assistant professor till July 2023.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Tuesday extended the date of applicability of PhD as the minimum qualification for recruitment of assistant professors in universities from July 2021 to July 2023. The decision comes amid the Covid-19 pandemic that brought the research work of PhD students to a standstill in the last one and a half years.
The assistant professor is an entry-level position in universities, which could be filled by Master’s degree holders who had qualified through the UGC’s NET or National Eligibility Test. In 2018, the Centre brought in the UGC (Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and Other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education) Regulation, which required that all candidates for the assistant professor position had a doctoral degree.
It gave a three year period for the transition, saying the mandatory requirement would be introduced from July 1, 2021 for the 2021-22 academic year.
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Due to the pandemic, many candidates could not complete their PhDs and were appealing to the government to relax the eligibility this year since universities have been shut and research activities suffered due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The decision comes amid the Covid-19 pandemic that brought the research work of PhD students to a standstill in the last one and a half years.
In an interaction with journalists on September 30, the Education Minister said the requirement was one of the hurdles to filling up vacant faculty positions, as many candidates were not PhD degree holders. There are more than 6,000 sanctioned positions which are vacant at the Central Universities alone and Mr. Pradhan had given them an October-end deadline to fill these seats.
