The professoriate

According to the new regulations notified by the University Grants Commission,university faculty will now be tested for their teaching chops as well as the quantity and quality of their published work,which will now determine how they ascend in their careers. Academic performance indicators will score them on teaching duties as well as co-curricular or departmental contribution,and fulfilling these will let them offer themselves for promotion so they can clamber up the ladder on their own terms instead of being mechanically moved upwards. On the surface,this is an unobjectionable,even important advance,given the need to create a clear,performance-centred ethos in our colleges.

First,the larger question are matters of academic judgment and merit reducible to metrics? Second,why should all university work be judged by the same template? Even an attempt to evolve objective and verifiable criteria drawn up by a screening/ selection committee entails similar difficulties. Subjectivity creeps in at every stage for instance,the proposed system is heavy on research and academic contribution papers published in refereed journals wins 15 points per publication,and 10 in case of a non-refereed journal. While that will certainly goad faculty to publish prodigiously and boost the journal business,it is debatable how that indicates improvement for all kinds of schools. Also,how is a university equipped to assess previous institutional performance when a faculty member moves schools?

This system also mandates specifics a minimum 40 hours of teaching load a week for 30 working weeks,six hours for research,and the capacity to hire 10 per cent teaching staff on contract. While it is patently important to ensure minimum standards,there needs to be adequate scope for flexibility. A single paradigm cannot apply to all kinds of knowledge production,and while the regulation acknowledges the differing requirements of humanities and science,for instance,the current notification should be a starting point towards a more supple approach. Some institutions might have to rely more on adjunct faculty than on a committed core of research-driven professors. Instead of letting institutions put stress on different areas and place their own individual demands on faculty depending on that self-conception,this regulation appears to fit them all into one supposedly high-yield formula.

But comforting as it may be to go quant,it is no substitute for a real test of achievement. Simply mechanising the input process does not produce better output.