Case for National Eligibility Test for Teachers

The article ‘UGC’s Disincentives for PhD’ by K M Seethi (EPW, June 3), contends that the UGC’s recent decision to reintroduce NET (National Eligibility Test) as an essential qualification for the post of lecturer in universities and colleges “would devalue the PhD degree and discourages serious research”. This is absolutely baseless and one-sided. The UGC insisted on NET as an essential qualification for entry to lecturers’ cadre only. Also, the UGC has been giving substantial incentives to PhD holders through its career advancement programme which are being utilised by almost all teachers in the universities and colleges in the country.

A lecturer has not only to teach and motivate the student but also be familiar with a wide variety of subjects cutting across faculties, in addition to the core subject. The UGC’s NET primarily tests the candidates’ teaching ability, subject knowledge, general awareness and general intelligence in a systematic manner. Both objective and subjective types of questions are included in it. It is not “modelled primarily” on the banking service recruitment examination pattern as Seethi alleges. I agree with Seethi that “a teacher must be an imaginative person, capable of moulding the character and intelligence of the students at high level”. But does a person with a PhD degree necessarily do this job well? The UGC may have considered the various commission reports concerning improvement of the quality of higher education when it prescribed a national criteria for lecturers in colleges and universities. There are questions about educational psychology, general awareness, student motivation techniques, etc, included in the NET examination.