Higher education regulator University Grants Commission (UGC) is rethinking its decision to scrap the minimum qualification for the appointment of vice-chancellors, its chairman Ved Prakash said here Sunday. The UGC in July last year decided to delete clause 7.3.0 (minimum qualification for appointment of teachers, other academic staff in universities and colleges and other measures for maintenance of standards in higher education) in UGC Regulations, 2010.
The clause said, “Persons of the highest level of competence, integrity, morals and institutional commitment are to be appointed as the vice-chancellors. The vice-chancellors should be a distinguished academician, with a minimum of 10 years of experience as a professor in a university system or in an equivalent position in a reputed research or academic administrative organisation.”
“We are now rethinking it. All the stakeholders should participate in the process of appointment of the head of an institution. However, there are variations in the acts of different universities that have different provisions. At one point, it was thought that we should have a minimum qualification, so it was included in 2010 regulations. Subsequently, there was a school of thought which said states should have the prerogative of who would be appointed. But now, we are revisiting our decision to remove the clause,” Prof Prakash said.