NEW DELHI: Teachers in universities will now have to undergo mandatory refresher course training every year, starting this year, passing which will be compulsory.
Officials in the University Grants Commission said that the move was part of measures taken to upgrade the quality of education being imparted in Indian universities.
“The refresher courses have been designed so that the teachers keep abreast with the latest in their field, and what new teaching methodology do they need to incorporate for the betterment of students,” a senior UGC official said.
The courses will be subject-specific and will be updated every year.
“At the end of the course, teachers will be required to appear in a test to assess how much have they learned through the course,” the official added.
Based on their score, the teachers will be graded from A to F, where A will be given to teachers scoring over 85 per cent and F to those scoring less than 50 per cent.
“Those who are graded F will be considered as having failed the test and will be made to repeat the refresher course,” another UGC official told this newspaper.
The higher education department of the Union Human Resources Development Ministry has taken a slew of measures for upgrading the quality of education across institutes of higher education.
The regulator of technical institutes—All India Council of Technical Education—too, starting 2019, is making refresher training courses for teachers in engineering, management and other technical institutes mandatory.
Attending these courses will be taken into account in the academic performance indicators of the teachers, AICTE sources said.
The UGC has been taking action to ensure quality education. Recently, it prohibited imparting distance degree programmes in agriculture.
The decision was taken by the higher education regulator on the ground that a degree programme in agriculture is technical in nature as it requires practicals or laboratory courses. The Union agriculture ministry had referred the matter to the commission.