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M.P. Govt. lowers eligibility criteria

Staff Correspondent

Promotion of Assistant Professors as Professors

BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh Cabinet has approved and the State Government has even issued orders to lower the criteria for promoting Assistant Professors as Professors in the State Higher Education Department. This was stated by an official source here on Friday.

The Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) takes into consideration the grading of those in line for promotion. Till 2002, it was the State Government's criterion to promote to Class I posts only those who had a "good" Confidential report (CR). In 2004, this benchmark was raised to "very good" CR.

Significantly, the confidential reports by principals and heads of institutions of higher learning are treated as an important basis for evaluating the performance of the teaching staff.

Since those with very good CRs had more than 13 points when the last DPC was held, it was decided to promote all the assistant professors having 13 or more marks in 2006.

Subsequently representations were made to the Government by some of those who were left out and could not be promoted as professors since they failed to meet the Government's stringent criteria for promotion.

It is learnt that after a considerable lobbying at various political and administrative levels the State Cabinet took this issue into consideration and approved the proposal to lower the criterion to a "good" CR as a one-time exception for the January 1, 2004 DPC.

When contacted, an official spokesman confirmed this development and said the Government's decision would now be sent to the State Public Service Commission and in light of the Cabinet and Government orders those having a "good" CR and have secured between 10 and 13 marks at the evaluation stage would now be promoted as professors.

In academic circles, the unanimous view was that the system of confidential reports would now lose its relevance. Some professors even said that the latest Cabinet decision would have an adverse impact on the quality of education in institutions of higher learning in Madhya Pradesh as the message that would now go down is that promotions at the teaching staff level in Government colleges in the State are not linked to merit or performance.

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M.P. Govt. lowers eligibility criteria

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