They may no longer be required to take up such projects for getting promotions.

Teachers in colleges will soon no longer require mandatory research output for promotions, with the Ministry of Human Resource Development setting the ball rolling to change the guidelines for Academic Performance Indicators (API).

However, the research requirement will continue to be mandatory for teachers in university departments for promotions.

Laying out the new guidelines, Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar said, “Making research compulsory for college teachers [has] harmed research. Thirteen thousand UGC magazines came up. Many colleges made their annual magazines into quarterlies and added them. I said there are so many journals here: do you have Champak too?”

The Minister was addressing a conference on “Higher Education Perspectives in India” at the Deen Dayal Upadhyay College here on Saturday.

Relief for teachers

The change is expected come as a relief for college teachers, as their teaching load is generally higher than university faculty and many have been apprehensive that promotions would become tough as they would not have time to present well-researched publications for quality, peer-reviewed journals.

“College and universities teachers are two different kinds of categories with different expectations. College teachers’ primary responsibility should be to teach well. That accountability is required,” Mr. Javadekar said. “We will not make research compulsory for them. We will say, ‘It is your choice’,” he added.