Central University of Karnataka (CUK), the only Central university in the State, is facing allegations of violating guidelines set by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in the ongoing process of recruiting 67 professors and associate professors.
A key violation has been in terms of considering journal publications by aspirants and years of experience. While on September 16, 2019, the UGC came up with a list of approved journals and said that publications in those were to be considered while recruiting, in many cases the old list has been taken into account. Within a week of the issuance of the UGC public notice, CUK issued a notification on September 25, 2019 inviting applications for the recruitment of 67 professors and associate professors to 30 departments. It also mentioned clearly that the changed UGC guidelines on research publications were to be considered for the selection of candidates.
As a result, many aspirant candidates who did not have the required number of research papers published in the UGC-approved list did not apply for the posts. However, there were many others who did so despite not meeting the criteria, and the scrutiny committee did not reject their applications and considered them for interviews.
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Only some departments — Geology, Geography, Linguistics, and Physics — rejected candidates who did not meet the criteria. Other departments, including Computer Science, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Life Sciences, History and Archaeology, Tourism and Hotel Management, Education, Commerce, and Business Studies, did not stick to the UGC guidelines on the research papers to be considered. However, they made a conditional selection by putting an asterisk in front of their names and the remarks “subject to submission of publication evidence as per UGC norms” and “subject to submission of past service documents”. Even this was not uniform, as only some were picked with such a rider, while others with a comparable number of publications and years of experience were not.
This issue was raised by Ganapati Sinnoor at the 49th meeting of the executive council (EC), the highest governing body of the university, held on November 14, 2019. The EC discussed the issue and “resolved to consider the matter on quality parameter also as suggested by UGC”.
Yet, some of the scrutiny committees, defying the EC, continued to violate the UGC letter dated September 16, 2019, which categorically advised considering only those research papers published in the UGC-approved list, as well as the university’s recruitment notification, which also incorporated the UGC guidelines to frame the eligibility criteria on the research papers to be considered.
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As per the recruitment notification, a minimum of eight years of teaching experience as assistant professor in the relevant subject is a criterion to be chosen for the post of associate professor. However, there have been many instances where candidates who did not meet the requirement were selected for interview. Under this norm, too, there have been inconsistencies, with some with inadequate years of experience being pushed forward.
who did not.