| Introduction: What are Academic Performance Indicators (API)? Body: What is the impact of API on the appointment process? What can be the way forward? Conclusion: Conclude with steps that UGC can take. |
UGC has made Academic Performance Indicators (API) mandatory for the promotion and appointment of professors and lecturers. This was introduced by the UGC in 2010. API score is calculated using metrics such as years of teaching experience, books she/he has published, no publications the faculty have, how many conferences has the faculty attended, etc.
What is the impact of API on the appointment process?
- Slow appointments: Appointments based on API score rely on a single metric which can’t fully capture the total capability of a faculty leading to delays in appointments.
- Burdensome procedure: Since many candidates are having low API scores, colleges are interviewing thousands of candidates for recruitment with limited time for interaction between the board and candidates.
- Ad hoc teachers: Ad-hocism still is on the rise as temporary teachers who are teaching for quite a long time are still not able to clear the metrics required by API. This affects their mental health and sometimes leads to tragic loss of life.
- Outside influence: Evidence suggests that despite being a merit-driven process there are reports of candidates being appointed based on recommendations by various social and cultural organizations.
Way Forward:
- Common Portal: UGC has launched the ‘CU-Chayan’ portal to streamline the recruitment process and all future recruitments will be through the new portal.
- Transparency: New portal will lead to transparency in the recruitment process by offering a completely online system from application to screening.
- Digital features: System alerts would be sent to the candidate ensuring they are informed of vacancies released. Another important feature is a single login attempt to be applicable to apply for more than one college and the new dashboard offers real-time tracking of applications.
Conclusion:
The focus of UGC should be to fill vacancies in central universities at the earliest and make possible efforts to make ad hoc teachers permanent based on their merit and qualifications. Finally, UGC should devise norms regarding providing mental support to faculty who are troubled and need counseling. Teacher Unions should focus on performance appraisal based on qualitative analysis and those who are recruited on an ad hoc basis should be considered based on their work experience.
