Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

Welcome to edition #23 of Ed Set Go, your one-stop destination for all things education. I want to thank you for staying the course with us, and I truly hope that reading our bevy of sharp, timely, and well-narrated newsletters is quickly becoming a habit every day of the week!

Now, we are all well aware of the power that labels have when it comes to education. A label, a degree, a brand… an inalienable entry point for those who possess it. And in brand-crazy India, label holders want to put their stamp on almost everything.

Source: Namanbir Singh/Twitter

Which brings us to the issue at hand this edition—are PhDs still the ultimate label for aspiring professors? Or has the increased emphasis on “employability” changed the dynamics of who is expert enough to train students?

Unsurprisingly, the government’s intervention has made this a very complex question to answer.

But hey, at ESG, we’re all about tough nuts to crack. Let’s get going.

The expert track

Last week, the University Grants Commission (UGC) decided to do away with the need for a PhD to teach at centrally-funded universities. The present rules do not allow the appointment of “…someone who has implemented large projects and has a lot of on-the-ground experience…,” said UGC Chairman Jagdeesh Kumar as part of the announcement.

Relevant industry connections is what the government is hoping for, say experts, which is why there are going to be efforts to create completely new positions like “associate professor of practice” in central universities.

The move can be an advantage and help decades-old universities shake up their curriculum and teaching. At the IIMs, for instance, this has been a crucial practice, aimed at keeping industry connections alive and giving students a chance to learn more practical, job-oriented skills. But Biju Abraham, an IIM Calcutta professor, warns against a permanent sort of arrangement with these “experts”. “These experts will have to constantly adapt to the changing business environment, and bring that into the classroom,” Abraham told me over a phone call.

In other words, hiring non-PhD experts may have only a very miniscule impact on the much larger, crippling problem of teacher shortage. At last count, 46 central universities were about 7,000 teachers short.

Experts can’t replace PhDs. But it may be the process for hiring PhDs that sparked off this interest in recruiting experts.

It’s damn hard to be a teacher in these parts

It’s actually impossible to pin down what the exact requirements are to land an entry-level, associate professor job in an Indian college. To be concise, it goes something like this:

In 2018, the government announced that every applicant for the post of an associate professor would have to have a PhD.