UGC Panel Recommends Universities to Grant Sabbatical Leaves to Teachers for Undertaking Research

The University Grants Commission (UGC) set up a panel which has recommended that colleges and universities should develop action plans of sending mid-career teachers on sabbatical leaves for pursuing writing and teaching. The committee comprises four members and is made for “Promoting and improving the quality of research in Indian colleges and universities”.

The head of this committee is Professor P Balaram who is the former Director of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. The committee created a report on this issue and submitted it to the UGC.

In the report that the committee has sent to the UGC, the panel said that the UGC should support and encourage the state universities and the affiliated colleges for putting such a generous and righteous programme in place. This programme would grant sabbatical leaves to mid-career teachers so that they can undertake research and write books and monographs which consolidate accumulated original research knowledge.

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The report also suggested the introduction of mid-career national level sabbatical awards that would be given on a competitive basis in order to enable 50 to 100 faculty members for doing research. This venture may also provide opportunities for such faculty members to build collaborative contacts with some major international and national institutions.

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The panel stated in the report that opportunities of this kind must be mandated in private as well as public institutions. The committee also made some other recommendations including the development of curricula, classroom pedagogy, and system of assessment, remedial teaching, promotion of academic integrity, encouraging the vernacular languages, using technology, policy internships, and media platforms etc.