UGC draft norms remove NET as must for assistant prof post

 

Source: The Times of India dated 07/01/2025.

नेट सेटशिवायही सहाय्यक प्राध्यापक होणे शक्य?

IIT: As placements dip, students look beyond campus

The trends, based on data obtained by The Indian Express, come against the backdrop of a shifting tech landscape, global economic uncertainties, and an increasing number of Indian Institute of Technology graduates competing in a dynamic job market.


IIT Delhi is the only institution that bucked the trend, maintaining a consistent placement percentage of 84 per cent to 85 per cent since 2018-19, except for fluctuations during the pandemic years of 2020-21.

In an indication of the changing hiring trends from the Indian Institutes of Technology, at least four older IITs have seen a decline in their campus placement percentages in recent years, even as surveys indicate the number of students getting jobs independently may be on the rise.

The trends, based on data obtained by The Indian Express, come against the backdrop of a shifting tech landscape, global economic uncertainties, and an increasing number of IIT graduates competing in a dynamic job market.


Five of the seven first-generation IITs responded to The Indian Express’s request under the RTI Act for placement data spanning six years, from 2018-19 to 2023-24. IIT Madras and IIT Guwahati did not share details and instead referred to their annual reports.
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Among the institutes that disclosed placement rates (the percentage of students receiving job offers) across undergraduate, postgraduate, and research programs, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, and IIT Roorkee recorded declines ranging from 5 to 16 percentage points (see chart).


IIT Bombay provided data only for 2022-23 and 2023-24, showing a drop from 82 per cent to 75 per cent. While IIT Guwahati’s placement percentage for 2023-24 (71 per cent) is higher than the pre-pandemic level of 2018-19 (67 per cent), it is seven percentage points lower than the previous year, 2022-23 (78 per cent).

IIT Delhi is the only institution that bucked the trend, maintaining a consistent placement percentage of 84 per cent to 85 per cent since 2018-19, except for fluctuations during the pandemic years of 2020-21 (80 per cent) and 2021-22 (75 per cent).



The factors — and some riders

While the IITs refused to comment on the record, students and teachers associated with the campus hiring process attributed the drop to a combination of factors: the aftereffects of post–Covid mass hiring in 2022, a slowdown in key sectors like tech and software, and increasing batch sizes.


“In 2022, there was a spike in placement percentages as the market recovered after Covid, with rates exceeding 85 per cent. This spike followed a two-year hiring freeze. Hiring in 2023 was more conservative, with fewer top MNCs coming in and a decline in software and tech recruitment. Placements this year might improve over last year, but are unlikely to match 2022 levels. The numbers may normalise by 2025,” said a source from IIT Kanpur.

Another person associated with placements at IIT Kharagpur pointed to growing batch sizes as a factor. At IIT Kharagpur, the number of students registering for placement has increased from 1,757 in 2018–19 to 2,668 in 2023–24, while those placed grew from 1,375 to 1,662 during the same period.

“Placements in 2022-23 were among the best for the institute, but there hasn’t been much improvement in the market since then, and the companies coming for placements this year haven’t met expectations,” the source said.

“The intake of students has been increasing gradually, with nearly 3,000 students sitting for placements this year, making it a challenging task to place everyone. While most JEE entrants are placed, companies have fewer roles for PG students,” the person said.


IIT Guwahati too said that placement outcomes are better for B.Tech graduates. “Most IIT placement data focuses on B.Tech students. In 2022, the B.Tech placement percentage was 83 per cent, and in 2023, it was 80 per cent,” an official from IIT Guwahati told The Indian Express. “PG students often prefer higher studies – they register for placements but do not pursue them further. The actual placement scenario is best reflected in undergraduate placements, where close to 80 per cent of students secure jobs, while 10 per cent go for higher studies, 5 per cent opt for civil services, and others pursue MBA programs.”

The official said that around 600 and 650 BTech students were placed in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

Though the placement percentage at IIT Bombay dropped from 82.16 per cent in 2022-23 to 74.53 per cent in 2023-24, an official said it would be misleading to draw conclusions solely from this data as it only reflects on-campus placements and not other career paths. “Many students shown as ‘not placed’ take routes like higher education or off-campus placements or entrepreneurship. The dip does not offer a true reflection unless compared with the exit survey,” the official said.

A newly introduced exit survey revealed that from 2018 to 2022, 57.1 per cent of students were placed through campus placements, 10.3 per cent found jobs independently, 1.6 per cent initiated start-ups, 8.3 per cent entered public services, 6.1 per cent were still seeking jobs, and 12 per cent pursued higher education in India or abroad.

Of the six IITs, only three shared data pertaining to the average salary package offered to placed students. IIT Kanpur’s average salary rose from Rs 22.1 lakh per annum (LPA) in 2020–21 to Rs 25.9 LPA in 2022–23, but dropped to Rs 23.7 LPA in 2023–24.

At IIT Kharagpur, the average salary increased from Rs 14 LPA in 2020–21 to Rs 18 LPA in 2022–23, before declining to Rs 17 LPA in 2023–24.

IIT Bombay recorded an average salary of Rs 21.50 LPA in 2021–22, slightly rising to Rs 21.82 LPA in 2022–23.

Why IIT Delhi stood out

The increase in students availing themselves of IIT Delhi’s placement services rose from 1,471 in 2021-2022 to 1,531 in 2023-2024, largely due to a significant rise in participation from PhD scholars.


Nearly 190 PhD candidates, a sixfold increase, sought placements for the first time, affecting the overall placement percentage since regular job profiles for B.Tech and M.Tech graduates are not suitable for PhD scholars.

To address this, IIT Delhi conducted a special recruitment drive for PhD students in June 2024, resulting in a sevenfold increase in offers as compared to the previous year. An official said: “If you notice, the number of offers received in 2022-2023 (1,287) and 2023-24 (1,222) are comparable and only about 5 per cent less than the previous year. Despite difficult market conditions and placements across the institutions in the country during 2023-2024, IIT Delhi managed to do reasonably well last year. We are striving to get our PhD and other students jobs to achieve a very good overall placement this year. We have a number of profiles lined up for this year and are hoping to cater to all aspiring students.”

In an exit survey conducted by IIT Delhi this year, 1411 (53.1 per cent) students confirmed that they had received a job offer. On the other hand, 224 (8.4 per cent) students responded that they were self-employed, whereas 45 (1.7 per cent) students informed that they are working for a start-up and 66 (2.5 per cent) students were involved in entrepreneurship.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/express-exclusive/iit-placements-dip-students-look-beyond-campus-too-9763771/

UGC eases hiring contract teachers, opens V-C post to non-academics too

The 2018 University Grants Commission regulations had limited contract teacher appointments to 10 per cent of an institution’s total faculty positions. The new draft regulations have also removed the cap on such appointments.

UGC eases hiring contract teachers, opens V-C post to non-academics too, ugc hiring procedure, non academic, The new rules will be finalised after the higher education regulator receives public feedback on the draft. 

In a major overhaul of the process of appointment of leaders in higher education, the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued new rules Monday which effectively give Governors in states broader powers in appointing Vice-Chancellors and opened the position to industry experts and public sector veterans, thus breaking from the tradition of selecting only academicians.

According to government sources, if approved as is, the new regulations will give Chancellors greater control over Vice-Chancellor selection. This will likely have significant ramifications for Opposition-ruled states such as Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Kerala, where the government and Governor (who serves as Chancellor of state universities) are currently locked in disputes over the top academic appointment process.

The new draft regulations — titled ‘University Grants Commission (Minimum Qualifications for Appointment and Promotion of Teachers and Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education) Regulations, 2025’ — have also removed the cap on contract teacher appointments.

The 2018 regulations had limited such appointments to 10 per cent of an institution’s total faculty positions.

The new rules will be finalised after the higher education regulator receives public feedback on the draft.

“The Chancellor/Visitor shall constitute the Search-cum-Selection Committee comprising three experts,” the new regulations state. Earlier, the regulations mentioned that the selection for the post of Vice-Chancellor should be through proper identification by a panel of 3–5 persons formed by a Search-cum-Selection Committee but did not specify who would constitute the committee.

According to a senior government official, there are at least two Supreme Court judgments that make the UGC regulations, especially those pertaining to academic appointments, applicable to state universities as well.

In other words, Governors in states who are Chancellors of state universities now have more control over the selection process and also have the final say on the V-C appointment. The draft guidelines also warn that non-implementation may result in debarring an institution from participating in UGC schemes or from offering degree programmes.

“Every time we revise UGC regulations, we try to make changes based on past experiences. As far as Vice-Chancellor appointments are concerned, we have tried to make the selection process as clear as possible, leaving no room for ambiguity,” said a senior government official. When asked if the change was influenced by the tussle between the Government and Governors in some states, the official said, “The regulation doesn’t mention the Governor anywhere. Whoever is the Chancellor will appoint the selection committee.”

Another key change in the draft regulations is that university Vice-Chancellors need not be professors, but can be individuals at senior levels in industry, public policy, public administration, or public sector undertakings, going by the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) new draft regulations on appointment and promotion of teachers and academic staff in universities and colleges.

Another key change in the draft regulations is that it does away with the Academic Performance Indicators (API) system– a score that determines the recruitment and promotion of teachers based on parameters such as publication in journals. Instead, “notable contributions” across nine categories are to be considered for recruitment and promotion of teachers, including “teaching contributions in Indian languages” and “teaching-learning and research in Indian Knowledge Systems.”

According to UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar, the API system in the 2018 regulations “heavily relied on quantitative metrics, reducing academic performance to numerical scores.”

“In the previous regulations, candidates were often judged primarily on numerical criteria, such as journal or conference publication counts. The 2025 regulations discontinue the API-based shortlisting and adopt a more qualitative approach, allowing selection committees to assess candidates holistically based on their notable contributions and broader academic impact…,” he said.

Other notable contributions that will be considered are innovative teaching contribution, research or teaching lab development, consultancy or sponsored research funding as a principal investigator or co-principal investigator, student internship or project supervision, digital content creation for massive open online courses (MOOCs), community engagement and service, and a “startup”, registered with the Registrar of Companies as “a founding promoter, successfully raising funding through government, angel or venture funds to support the startup.”

Kumar said the subject experts in the selection committee for these hirings will evaluate the notable contributions “in a transparent way as decided by the selection committee.”

“The draft regulations expand the scope to identify leaders who can navigate complex systems, foster innovation, and build meaningful collaborations between academia, industry, and society in alignment with the vision of NEP 2020,” he said.

Earlier regulations issued in 2018 had said that the V-C should be a “distinguished academician”, with a minimum of ten years of experience as a Professor in a University or ten years of experience “in a reputed research and/or academic administrative organisation with proof of having demonstrated academic leadership.”

The new draft regulations say that the V-C candidate is to be a “distinguished person possessing high academic qualifications and demonstrated administrative and leadership capabilities”, with a minimum of ten years of experience as a professor in a higher educational institutions, or at a senior level in reputed research or academic administrative organisations, or at a senior level in industry, public administration, public policy and or public sector undertakings, with a “proven track record of significant academic or scholarly contributions.”

On doing away with the cap on appointments of contract teacher, Kumar said that it was done away with “to give some flexibility to higher educational institutions considering the fact that in many state universities, there are many faculty vacancies and they are making efforts to fill them up.”

“Once the state governments fill up the vacancies, contract basis appointments are expected to be less,” he said.

The general conditions for appointment of teachers in the new draft regulations also say that if the candidate’s subject at the undergraduate or postgraduate level is different from the PhD subject, the candidate will be considered eligible for appointment as a teacher in the subject in which they obtained the PhD. Additionally, if the candidate’s subject at the undergraduate or postgraduate level is different from their subject in qualifying exams like the NET or SET, the candidate will be eligible for appointment as a teacher in the subject in which they qualified in these exams. The 2018 regulations did not make such specifications.

“This is an important flexibility to remove rigid subject boundaries and allow faculty applicants to transition across disciplines, creating a more multi-disciplinary eco-system within university campuses as envisaged in NEP 2020,” Kumar said.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/education/ugc-eases-hiring-contract-teachers-opens-v-c-post-to-non-academics-too-9763765/

IIT Bombay and IISER Pune to be mentors to promote research in higher education institutions

"The idea is to promote and improve research work at central and state universities under the mentorship from hub institutions which are already excelling in research,” said Prof Karandikar“Total of 31 institutions across the country having stellar research records have been identified to become hubs (File)

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay from Mumbai and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) from Pune are the two institutions from Maharashtra identified as mentors under the Partnerships for Accelerated Innovation and Research (PAIR)–a flagship initiative by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) to promote research in higher education institutions in the country, secretary of Department of Science and Technology, Prof Abhay Karandikar said on Monday.

The ANRF, which aims to foster culture of research in India’s universities, colleges and other research institutions, launched the PAIR initiative a couple of months ago wherein higher educational institutions in the country having excellent research record will mentor other institutions such as central universities and public universities through pairing under ‘hub and spoke’ model.

“Total of 31 institutions across the country having stellar research records have been identified to become hubs. Now they will have to apply for PAIR along with their spoke institutions for a period of five years, on various themes listed for research with focus on multidisciplinary approach. The idea is to promote and improve research work at central and state universities under the mentorship from hub institutions which are already excelling in research,” said Prof Karandikar while adding that the mentorship parameters will have a range of activities from finalising on research topics depending on strengths, guidance on publishing of research papers in high quality journals and also co-supervising PhD students among others.

Each hub and spoke pairing will receive financial support of Rs 100 crore coming from the government through ANRF for a period of five years. “Out of the funding, 70 percent will have to be used for research activities at spoke institutions whereas a hub institution will get to use the remaining 30 percent of the grant. In order to expand the reach of the scheme, each hub institution is required to have one of the spoke institutions which is located outside of the state,” said Prof Karandikar who currently also holds charge on ANRF as CEO.

Prof Karandikar, who will be the chief guest for Mumbai University’s convocation ceremony to be held on Tuesday, delivered a talk at varsity’s Kalina campus a day before on how ANRF is transforming the science and technology landscape in the country. The talk which entailed information on various new schemes under ANRF to enhance research output was attended by several researchers from Mumbai University–faculty as well as students.

In his talk, Prof Karandikar highlighted that research output in the country is concentrated in few institutions with lowest number of (18) institutions having average publication per institute at 7,620 research papers and highest number (115) institutions have average publication per institute of 1,121 research papers while underlining how ANRF is devoted to enhance research and development outputs in institutions across the country.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/iit-bombay-and-iiser-pune-to-be-mentors-to-promote-research-in-higher-education-institutions-9763583/lite/