Let students rate teachers in colleges, universities: Parliamentary panel

Aditi Tandon

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New Delhi, July 4

The parliamentary standing committee on education has called for a system of performance appraisal where students and peers can evaluate the performance of professors and teachers in higher educational institutions, and recommended mandatory leadership courses for aspiring principals.

Headed by BJP’s Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, the panel, in its report, “Review of Education Standards, Accreditation Process, Research, Exam Reforms” submitted on Monday, said, “At least on an experimental basis a mechanism for ensuring the accountability and performance of faculties in the universities and colleges should be put in place similar to that of foreign universities where the performance of college professors and teachers is evaluated by their peers and students.”

The panel said there should be institutional leadership and management courses for aspiring, existing principals, administrative heads of colleges, universities, noting, “After a certain period of time, the Government can think about appointing only those academics as college principals and VCs who have completed institutional leadership programmes.”

In a range of recommendations, the committee suggested phygital (physical and digital) mode of instruction; de-recognition of colleges running commercial collaborations with coaching centres; 100 per cent tax deduction for donations to the education sector; parity of education with infrastructure; open curriculum and continuing curriculum revision.

It came down heavily on state universities over question paper leaks and rampant copying, saying, “The parameter of the institution’s exam management competency be considered mandatory for consideration of accreditation.”

Besides asking for education to be treated at par with the infrastructure sector and provided long-term loans, the committee said CAG and the Ministry of Finance should create systems to allow innovators and incubators to bid for government projects.

Requests for proposals should be redesigned to promote incubators, the panel said, recommending incentives for accreditation considering only 20 pc of India’s 50000 HEIs go for benchmarking.

The committee also backed the National Education Policy provision of auditing of educational institutions along the lines of Section 8 companies (not-for-profit) and called for reward based promotions of faculty.

To enable freedom of choosing subjects, the panel has asked the UGC to create an open curriculum for students besides backing Phygital (Physical plus Digital) instruction.

The committee has also asked the Government to actively consider the demand of deemed universities to use the term ‘university’ by amending Clause 23 of the UGC Act, 1956 which states that no institution, other than a university established or incorporated by a Central Act, a Provincial Act or a State Act is entitled to use the word ‘University’.

“The term deemed university creates confusion in foreign countries as there is no concept of deemed university in many parts of the world,” said the panel.

OTHER SUGGESTIONS

• Single window system to expedite approval from regulatory authorities which private, deemed, other universities require.
• Simplified hierarchy of regulatory bodies with a final say in implementation of rules under the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Act being drafted
• National Research Policy encompassing social and physical sciences
• New branch of knowledge namely Incubation and Innovation Studies
• Inclusion of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Robotics, Virtual Reality in curriculum
•  ‘Unipass’–digitally enabled card – for students to access all campus facilities

ABOUT HEIS

• India has 1,043 universities, 42,343 colleges and 11,779 standalone institutions. Of these, 78.6 per cent are in the private sector- aided or unaided colleges and only 21 per cent are in the Government sector.
• Barely 20 pc of 50,000 educational institutions go for formal accreditation.