New Delhi: Guiding PhD candidates or having one’s work published in academic journals may not be a mandatory requirement anymore for one looking to get hired as the Director/Principal of a technical college.
Instead, being a founder/co-founder of a start-up could get one shortlisted, an expert committee formed by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has suggested.
In a public notice issued Thursday, the AICTE — the regulator for technical education in the country — made public and sought feedback on the recommendations of the expert committee it formed to look into the issue.
According to the notice, the council “received various representations from the faculty members to revise the qualification for the post of Principal/Director”.
It added that the committee in its recommendations suggested widening the selection criteria to include experience and industry knowledge. According to the current regulations, it is mandatory for a candidate to either guide PhD candidates or have published a minimum of eight research papers. This criteria is now likely to change.
However, the two main selection criterion in AICTE’s gazette — ‘a’ and ‘c’ — will remain the same.
While ‘a’ refers to “PhD degree and First Class or equivalent at either Bachelor’s or Master’s level”, ‘c’ refers to “Minimum 15 years of experience in teaching /research/ industry, with a minimum of 3 years administrative experience at national/ state/ institutional level”.
The expert panel’s recommendations mainly suggest a change to point ‘b’ of the existing notification, which says the ideal candidate should have “guided at least two successful PhD candidates as supervisor/ co-supervisor” and have a “minimum of eight research publications in science journals”.
According to the committee’s recommendations, the candidate need not have mandatorily guided PhDs or published papers to be qualified for selection.
These two have been put in optional criteria along with having “at least two utility patents granted”, having “authored at least four books (text/reference) with reputed publishers” and having “organised at least four conferences as convener”.
Other conditions that the committee recommended be made optional are: “founder/co-founder of a start-up/ incubation unit recognized by MSME” and developed “one MOOC course applicable at national platform”.
It further recommended having a Postgraduate Certificate/Diploma/Degree in Management/Public Administration as one of the options.
“It was felt that the recruitment norms were heavily tilted towards academics. However, what is needed of a head of the institution is not just academics but other qualities like the ability to manage and lead, industry expertise and a sense of entrepreneurship so that he can guide the students in the correct direction,” a senior AICTE official told ThePrint.
The official added that the panel made its recommendations keeping in mind the above points.
“We have kept the recommendations in the public domain for 15 days and are inviting feedback from concerned stakeholders. Following this, it will be included in the council’s gazette,” he added.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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