UGC blinks, restores teaching hours

Bowing to the demands of college teachers protesting against changes made in the academic performance index (API) score criteria, the University Grants Commission on Wednesday restored the direct teaching hours workload.

“The direct teaching workload has been restored to 16, 14, 14 hours per week for assistant professors, associate professors and professors respectively. This was done through necessary amendments to the UGC norms,” higher education secretary V.S. Oberoi said.

He also held out an assurance that there will be no retrenchment of teachers on account of API and workload criteria, including those who are “ad-hoc” teachers. “The HRD ministry too has decided to approve these recommendations of the UGC which were approved at a commission meeting on Wednesday,” Mr Oberoi, who is also a member of the UGC, said. UGC chairman Ved Prakash and secretary Jaspal S. Sandhu were also present at the press conference on the issue.

Giving details, the UGC member said it has been decided that direct teaching hours would include tutorials, practical, fieldwork apart from lectures and project supervision.

“Mentoring by professors and teachers will also be recognised while calculating direct teaching score,” he said.

Mr Oberoi maintained that capping on API was previously been introduced through an earlier amendment. “Capping has been retained in only one sub-category, which is that of invited lectures, the provision of student feedback for teachers will still be there,” he said.

Despite the partial rollback, the Delhi University Teachers’ Association said that it would continue with the boycott of evaluation of examinations till Monday and would take out a candlelight march on Saturday till the time there is no complete rollback of the 3rd amendment.

“We had expected the complete rollback of the UGC 3rd amendment, but we heard that only the teaching hours has been restored though we have not received any official confirmation. The Duta will be holding a general body meeting on Thursday where the final review would be done, but as of now we have decided to continue the boycott of evaluation till Saturday and might even boycott the admission process,” said Rajesh Jha, Duta press secretary.

“Director of the DU South Campus had called the Duta executive for a meeting along with two principals and deans for asking them to withdraw the boycott of evaluation. But since nothing is been done in our favour, we will not step back,” he added.