Review eligibility criteria : AMSU

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Dec 30: Following The Sangai Express' exposure of the controversial MPSC notification, the All Manipur Students' Union (AMSU) has demanded the authorities concerned to immediately review it.
In a statement, the student body has placed five demands before the Manipur Public Service Commission (MPSC) and Department of Higher and Technical Education.
"AMSU will resist any dilution of academic standards in faculty recruitment," it said, urging the authorities concerned to immediately review and reconsider the December 19 revised notification which has made significant changes in the eligible educational qualifications for the posts of Assistant Professors.
AMSU said, the MPSC and the authorities concerned should issue "clear, department-wise notification of allied/relevant subjects, if required, strictly based on expert academic recommendations and in conformity with UGC norms."
The recruitment process must be transparent, unambiguous, merit-based, and academically sound, it said.
The Higher and Technical Education Department must revoke its earlier order which has formed the basis of existing ambiguity, it added.
The Higher and Technical Education Department must immediately notify a clear and exact mode and procedure for appointment and selection of Assistant Professors, including the criteria, stages of selection (written examination, interview, weightage), and applicable norms, which deems most suitable in prevailing academic ecosystem so that the recruitment process remains transparent, predictable, and free from arbitrariness, AMSU said.
The student body observed that the essential qualification for appointment has been altered from "concerned subject" to "concerned/allied/relevant subject", and this change has resulted in widespread ambiguity and confusion among aspiring candidates and stakeholders.
The revised notification responsible for this ambiguity appears to be based on a September 12 office order of the Manipur University wherein allied/relevant subjects were identified solely for the purpose of PhD admissions, it said.
The MPSC and Higher Education Department appear to have directly adopted the list of allied/relevant subjects from Manipur University's PhD admission norms, without conducting any independent, in-depth cross-examination of the essential educational qualifi- cations for the post of Assistant Professor, it added.
Each department of Manipur University has distinct essential educational qualifications for appointment of Assistant Profe- ssors, which are not identical to PhD admission requirements, AMSU stressed.
Each department of Manipur University has its own essential qualifications for Assistant Professor appointments, which are duly determined by the respective Departmental Board of Studies (DBS) and reaffirmed by the Board of Studies, School (BSS). The failure to consider these academically sanctioned standards, combined with the mechanical application of PhD admission criteria to faculty recruitment, has resulted in procedural impropriety and academic inconsistency, AMSU noted.
The criteria meant for PhD admissions cannot be mechanically or automatically extended to faculty recruitment, as the objectives, standards, and regulatory frameworks governing these two processes are fundamentally different, it stressed.
The essential educational qualifications for appointment of Assistant Professors in Manipur University and other higher educational institutions, including colleges, are distinct from those prescribed for PhD admissions. Any conflation of these two frameworks risks compromising subject specificity, academic rigour, and fairness in the recruitment process, said the student body.
AMSU then quoted a UGC clarification--"The relevance of the subject or the interdisciplinary nature of the subject is required to be decided by the concerned University/Appointing Authority with the help of subject experts in the concerned/related field as per its requirement."
While certain disciplines may be interdisciplinary in nature and may legitimately have allied subjects based on epistemological and methodological relationships, such determinations must be explicit, department-specific, and expert-driven. At the same time, the independent and core identity of each discipline must be strictly preserved, AMSU said.
Failure to revoke the controversial notice and address the legitimate concerns of students and aspirants will compel the union to initiate democratic forms of protest, AMSU said.
"The All-Manipur Students' Union hopes that the concerned authorities, particularly the Higher and Technical Education Department and MPSC, will act responsibly and in a timely manner, in the larger interest of higher education, academic integrity, and justice for aspiring candidates in the State of Manipur," it said.