PhD used to be a mandatory requirement to teach in many Central Universities. But gone are those days. In a major move, University Grants Commission, UGC has decided to do away with the old ‘mandatory PhD requirement’ in order to have more industry experts as teachers in Universities.Taking a step ahead, UGC reportedly, is also planning to create new and special positions, ones in which this requirement will not be there. Reports suggest that these new positions are likely to be Professors of Practice and Associate Professor of Practice.
UGC officials have further mentioned to reporters that the idea behind these new positions is to allow people with hands-on experience and industry work to come and share their knowledge with students. Further, it also strengthens the narrative where many experts want to teach but often can’t only because of no PhD degree. If this plan gets executed well, UGC is likely to ensure that while recruiting or allowing ‘experts’ and/or ‘professors’ to teach, they would only be checking their industry experience and would not consider a PhD degree under any of these special positions.
As far as the nature of these special positions goes, UGC has not clarified if they will be temporary or permanent. It is likely to keep such rules flexible depending on the requirements of the institute and the expert(s) themselves. Further, there is a likelihood for the special position to be of part-time role as well.
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