Clearing Nationwide Eligibility Take a look at (NET) will not be a compulsory qualification for appointment as an assistant professor, based on the College Grants Fee (UGC) draft pointers launched by Union schooling minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday for school recruitment and promotions in greater schooling establishments.
The draft norms give attention to eradicating “rigidity” from the prevailing eligibility standards for school appointments and offering alternatives for universities to rent tutorial employees from numerous, multidisciplinary backgrounds according to the Nationwide Training Coverage (NEP) 2020.
“These draft reforms and pointers will infuse innovation, inclusivity, flexibility, and dynamism in each side of upper schooling, empower academics and tutorial employees, strengthen tutorial requirements and pave the best way for reaching academic excellence,” Pradhan stated, throughout the launch of draft rules at UGC headquarters in Delhi.
Academicians have referred to as the draft rules “progressive” steps in direction of strengthening greater schooling.
The brand new norms will exchange the prevailing 2018 rules on minimal {qualifications} for school appointments in universities and schools. The 2018 rules made it obligatory for the candidate searching for the function of assistant professor stage — entry-level positions — to have cleared the UGC’s Nationwide Eligibility Take a look at (UGC-NET) after postgraduation (PG). It is not going to be obligatory underneath the brand new UGC draft norms.
“The 2018 rules belong to the pre-NEP 2020 period. Within the new rules, now we have eliminated rigidity from present regulators and are offering flexibility to the upper schooling establishments to pick the perfect abilities and supply them with a supportive ecosystem to develop in a number of methods,” UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar advised HT.
“The NEP 2020 says that we should introduce multidisciplinary schooling, subsequently our academics additionally needed to come from multidisciplinary backgrounds. No matter your undergraduate (UG) or postgraduate (PG) levels and their respective disciplines, pursuing a PhD in a very completely different area will nonetheless qualify you for school positions,” Kumar added.
In a gathering held on December 23, 2024, UGC authorized the “Draft UGC (Minimal {Qualifications} for Appointment of Academics and Tutorial Employees in Universities and Faculties and Measures for the Upkeep of Requirements in Larger Training) Laws, 2025”. Pradhan launched the draft pointers which are actually obtainable on the UGC web site for suggestions and strategies. These rules specify the minimal {qualifications}, expertise, and accomplishments for appointment and promotion of colleges and different tutorial employees, together with vice-chancellors, in greater schooling establishments.
The brand new draft norms state that candidates with four-year undergraduate (UG) or postgraduate (PG) levels in disciplines completely different from their PhD area will nonetheless be eligible for appointment as assistant professors within the topic of their PhD. Moreover, candidates who qualify for the Nationwide Eligibility Take a look at (NET) or State Eligibility Take a look at (SET) in a topic completely different from their four-year UG diploma can be eligible for assistant professor positions within the self-discipline or topic by which they cleared NET or SET.
“This is a crucial flexibility to take away inflexible topic boundaries and permit school candidates to transition throughout disciplines, making a extra multidisciplinary ecosystem inside college campuses as envisaged in NEP 2020,” Kumar stated.
Candidates should have a four-year UG diploma with no less than 75% marks or a PG diploma with no less than 55% marks and a PhD Diploma for the appointment of assistant professor, based on new draft rules.
As per the 2018 rules, candidates searching for appointment as school members are judged based mostly on the Tutorial Efficiency Indicator (API) system which closely depends on quantitative metrics resembling journal or convention publication counts. The 2025 rules discontinue the API-based shortlisting and undertake a extra qualitative method, Kumar stated.
“To date, now we have been emphasising publication in journals and presentation of papers at conferences. Now, school members can do this whereas contributing to the schools and schools by writing textbooks, growing applied sciences, making use of for patents, making use of for patents, establishing start-up firms, researching on Indian Data System (IKS), and selling Indian languages within the studying course of in greater schooling establishments. The contributions of colleges in these areas can be assessed by choice committees of their promotions,” Kumar stated.
The PhD diploma can be a compulsory qualification for promotion to affiliate professor and professor in universities and schools. Candidates should have made no less than notable contributions in no less than 4 areas out of the 9 — modern instructing contribution; analysis or instructing lab improvement; consultancy or sponsored analysis funding as a principal investigator or co-principal investigator; instructing contributions in Indian languages; teaching-learning and analysis in IKS; pupil internship or venture supervision; digital content material creation for large open on-line course (MOOCs); neighborhood engagement and repair; and start-up with funding by means of authorities, angel or enterprise funds to assist it.
Whereas for appointment as affiliate professor, candidates should have a minimal of eight years instructing as an assistant professor, the appointment for professor requires no less than 10 years of instructing as assistant professor or affiliate professor.
With an purpose to allow expert practitioners to contribute to academia whereas preserving cultural heritage and selling bodily schooling, the most recent UGC draft rules have launched specialised recruitment pathways to draw prime expertise in fields like yoga, music, performing arts, and sports activities, recognising skilled achievements and nationwide or worldwide accolades.
A distinguished individual possessing excessive tutorial {qualifications} with a minimal of ten years of expertise as a professor in an HEI can be eligible to be appointed as vice-chancellor. The draft rules have additionally modified the choice course of for vice-chancellors by increasing eligibility standards to incorporate professionals from academia, analysis establishments, public coverage, public administration, and business.
Prof Dhananjay Joshi, vice-chancellor, of Delhi Academics College referred to as the brand new draft rules a “progressive step” in direction of greater schooling. “Academics must be dynamic according to the multidisciplinary nature of schooling as advocated in NEP 2020. The rules present the rules for a similar,” he stated.
