Bending rules to favour few ---------------------------------- The change in eligibility criteria in the recent notification by Public Service Commission for posts of Assistant Professors defies rules and common sense. Author: Majid Nisar https://facebook/majid.nisar ->> I once heard a story, about a man in zoo. He gathered every animal in the zoo, choose one from each category including elephants, seals, wolf, monkey, zebras and said that I would like to see who the best in you is. In the interest of fairness and being just, I am going to give you all the same test. “Climb this tree” he said. Well, this is what higher education department told the aspirants through the set of rules it framed to appoint the Assistant Professors for various colleges across the state. The re-advertised posts chart out the ugly but actual state of affairs when it comes to policy making and framing the recruitment rules here in Jammu and Kashmir. Its depicts the policy lacunas and how people at the helm of affairs don’t put even an ounce of common sense in making these set of rules. It also defies clear cut policy framed by University Grants commission for higher education and is a classic case of shifting the balance in your own favour to suit few and I stress, a very few. The SRO 423 of the state, granted exemption of National Eligibility Test to aspirants from programmes like Masters in Business Administration, Masters in Computer Applications and M.Phil. up till December 2013 to apply for the posts of Assistant Profess at college level. Although, candidates from these fields applied for the posts advertised in 2013, the forms were not entertained at the Public Service Commission on the pretext that higher education policies demanded NET/SLET/JRF/Ph.D as the primary eligibility in all the subjects, despite the fact that SRO 423 exempts MCA/MBA/MPhil candidates. The higher education department and public service commission played its part perfectly for stalling game, declaring hundreds of candidates ineligible for the post; eventually some of the students got a stay order against the advertised posts. Now to the most interesting part, the government comes out with a new SRO which actually is the subject matter of this article. The SRO 124 is the new benchmark for the recruitment. A cursory look at this SRO reveals that it violates the University Grants Commission’s norms and guidelines on so many counts. Let’s first analyze the University Grants commission’ public Notice of 12th October 2012 for higher education recruitment to understand the discrepancies in the SRO 124: As per the UGC Act, 1956, UGC is empowered to define the qualifications required of any person to be appointed to the teaching staff of the University/Institutions. As per UGC (Minimum Qualification required for the appointment of Career Advancement of Teachers in universities and institutions affiliated to it) (3rdAmendment) Regulation 2009 notified in the Gazette of India on 11th July, 2009, the following minimum qualification was required for appointment as Lecturer/Assistant Professor. • ‘NET/SLET shall remain the minimum eligibility condition for recruitment and appointment of Lecturers in Universities/Colleges/Institutions. • Provided, however, that candidates, who are or have been awarded Ph.D. Degree incompliance of the “University Grants Commission (Minimum Standards and Procedure for award of Ph.D. Degree), Regulation 2009, shall be exempted from the requirement of the minimum eligibility condition of NET/SLET for recruitment and appointment of Assistant Professor or equivalent positions in Universities/Colleges/Institutions.” • As per the subsequent UGC Regulations namely UGC (Minimum Qualification for appointment of teachers and other Academic staff in universities and colleges and other measure for the maintenance of the standards in Higher Education) Regulation 2010, notified in the Gazette of India on 18.9.2010, the following minimum eligibility condition is required to be fulfilled for recruitment and appointment of Assistant Professor in universities/colleges/institutions. • In section 3.3.1 NET/SLET/SET shall remain the minimum eligibility condition for recruitment and appointment of Assistant Professors in Universities/Colleges/Institutions. Provided however, that candidates, who are or have been awarded a Ph.D. Degree in accordance with the University Grants Commission (Minimum Standards and Procedure for award of Ph.D. Degree) Regulations, 2009, shall be exempted from the requirement of the minimum eligibility condition of NET/SLET/SET for recruitment and appointment of Assistant Professor or equivalent positions in Universities/Colleges/Institutions. • In section 3.3.2 NET/SLET/SET shall not be required for such Masters Degree Programmes in disciplines for which NET/SLET/SET accredited test in not conducted. • There is no mention of MBA /MCA or M. Phil for whom NET/SET/SLET is waved off. Now let me assert my point using the statistics. To lay the foundation in the back drop of the events, the public service commission comes up with a new notification on29.09.2014 number 12-PSC(DR-P) of 2014, inviting applications for hundreds of pots in discipline wise breakup of posts: As per the previous SRO which expired on December 2013, the waver of NET was given to the professional courses like MCA/MBA/Food tech. as they were comparatively newer subjects in the valley, and it was a bit difficult to qualify NET in those subjects or the number of candidates having NET is these subjects was less. Let’s create a ratio of posts advertised/re advertised to the candidates available. The number of post advertised for MBA is 19 and the number of candidates available with NET/SLET/SET/JRF alone is more than 1000 and then we also have people with Ph.D.’s. So the ratio is equal to 0.019 against the posts advertised and eligible candidates. The ratio analysis for computer science reveals that the posts advertised/re- advertised is 73 and number of candidates available NET/SET /SLET/JRF roughly is about 50 or 60 candidates including Ph.D.’s . The ratio comes out to be 1.2. NET has been exempted for Business Administration/management studies, while rest of the candidates is kept at bay. The question to the people at the helm of affairs is who should be provided an exemption. Do I smell a dead rat, well even a mammoth would be an understatement. The criteria set for exemption of NET for MBA has become a laughing stock for the people across the social networking sites. On a lighter note, my friend once wrote that I am glad they have said minimum qualification for management as M.B.A had they kept it B.B.A. He would have been ineligible in that case. It seems like they have lowered the bar to select a few which is unjust, and defies common sense. It also reminds me of common adage “common sense is uncommon to most of the people” or it seems like that it is smart play on somebody’s part. Concluding, I am reminded of famous paradox of a British philosopher and pacifist Bertrand Russell of fools and wise men, when it comes to the policy making of the state “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts,” he said and wisely so. The author teaches school of Business Studies, IUST and can be reached at majidnisar@gmail adm#001
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 05:15:36 +0000
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