FEDCUTA Press Release, 02.06.2016

The FEDCUTA Secretariat met on 25.5.2016 at the JNU Faculty Centre at 4 pm to discuss the UGC Gazette Notification dated 4th May, 2016, and passed the following Resolution:


“The FEDCUTA strongly condemns the UGC Gazette Notification of 4th May as being anti-teacher and anti- higher education in general. Its focus on steep increase in the workload for teachers and its failure to withdraw the API points as the basis of promotion for teachers has created a strong sense of disaffection amongst the teaching community across the country.


1. The Notification clearly strikes at quality student–teacher interactions by restricting the number of tutorials, taking them out of the ambit of direct teaching hours and halving the weightage given to practicals. This will also double the number of courses to be taught by a teacher,  giving hardly any time for preparation, corrections, interaction with students, research,  and other important academic and institutional tasks. It increases the overall teaching hours by 50% and will lead to a massive reduction  in the number of teaching posts to the tune of almost 50%, thus endangering the jobs and  livelihood of lakhs of teachers across the country teaching on temporary, ad-hoc, guest and contractual basis, and will strike a blow against the job aspirations of lakhs of post graduates and research scholars. The sharp reduction in the number of teachers will also have severe adverse repercussions on the student- teacher ratio, an important indicator in global ranking. In one blow this will reduce our public-funded universities to academic slums.


2. The Notification was ostensibly brought to address grievances of teachers about the Point Based Appraisal System (PBAS) that used a bureaucratic and mechanical criteria called Academic Performance Indicators (API) that has made promotions for teachers virtually impossible in the last six years, and is widely seen as the single greatest cause of degradation of teaching-learning and research in our Universities and colleges. The Arun Nigavekar Committee, that had been set up last August to address these grievances,  did not invite Teachers Associations  FEDCUTA and AIFUCTO for consultation. Instead of making its report public and inviting teachers associations for discussions on it, the MHRD secretly notified it in the Gazette on 4th May, 2016. In this Notification, the Appendix on API has been amended to make it even more difficult to get promotion. For example: (a) The condition of 60 points for direct teaching requires six hundred hours of actual teaching per year, i.e. 300 hours of teaching per semester or 20 hours a week, which is an impossibility even if a teacher takes no leave or there are no institutional holidays! (b) The introduction of student feedback as part of the API points to be earned by a teacher for being considered for promotion will strain the student-teacher relationship in a situation where students are often guided by short-term interests rather than their long-term growth. Popularity, rather than discipline and rigour, would become the desired goals. In a society divided by caste, class, community, political beliefs and gender, biases could come into play. Moreover, in a scenario where teachers have very little control on the quality and content of courses and structures, examination and grading systems, and are overloaded with courses with very little time for preparation, it would be grossly unfair to deny them promotions on the basis of perceived performance. (c) The condition on publications having to be only in UGC prescribed journals will strike a blow against non-mainstream research. This is clearly an attempt to clamp down on academics holding dissident views and certainly a move to curb academic creativity. The FEDCUTA views these developments as linked to the recent 55 percent reduction in the funding to the UGC by the Government, which is the latest in a series of attempts to downgrade and downsize public-funded universities.


The FEDCUTA demands that:
1. The UGC Gazette Notification 2016  be withdrawn forthwith
2. The PBAS (API) scheme be completely rolled back and the MPS 1998 scheme be restored
3. There be a restoration of public funding of higher education and greater allocation to the UGC in the budget should be made
4. That the second Tranche of teaching posts as promised under the OBC-expansion scheme be released to colleges and universities and that the process of filling up existing vacancies be expedited on the basis of the GoI roster for SC/ST/OBC/PWD
5. One time exemption from NET be given to the Phd. holders who had registered before 2009.

Nandita Narain                                           
(President, FEDCUTA)