Shiksha Samachar: UGC sets up committee to examine whether NET exam serves any purpose

UGC sets up committee to examine whether NET exam serves any purpose
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Rizwan Khan on 28/03/2013 22:26:00


The University Grants Commission has set up a new committee to examine whether
the National Eligibility Test (NET) is actually effective in its role as a
gatekeeper for all those who seek to teach in the Indian university system.
Actually, the wonder is not so much that the authority of the NET has been
supreme ever since it was instituted in the 1980s, but that this has been so
despite the many second thoughts that the UGC itself has had about it in the
interim.
In 1993, UGC decided to give PhD and MPhil degree-holders exemption from the
NET, because these are the highest degrees in academics, and thereby denote
lofty standards in and of themselves. In 2002, the blanket exemption was
withdrawn. In 2006, a concerned committee recommended scrapping the NET, but all
that was once again scrapped was the requirement for PhDs and MPhils to take the
NET. In 2009, MPhils lost the exemption. In 2012, qualifying scores were changed
across general, SC/ST and OBC categories after the NET results were published!
It's education that has been the casualty of UGC's whimsy. It has been pushing
for inter-disciplinary courses for students even while promoting a
multiple-choice exam for teachers. With critical thinking at one end and rote
cramming on the other, UGC has basically set up an unworkable equation.
Universities set up as centres of excellence need to be autonomous, and an
essential component of that has to be autonomy in selecting their teachers.
Using the NET as gatekeeper relies on a centralised, colonial model of
university education that is obsolete. So let NET retreat into limbo. And shed
no tears for the death of its 'common national yardstick', for higher education
is actually about creating excellence, also known as distinction.
Sourse : timesofindia.indiatimes.com