Role reversal: Teachers, get ready to be assessed by your students

Dear teachers! The tables have turned.

Students will now assess you, all thanks to the MHRD.

Paving way for transperancy in teacher performance, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, for the first time, has decided to allow students to give feedback of their teachers.

Students, who have 75 per cent or more attendance, will be able to assess.

Smriti Irani's ministry has introduced something called Academic Performance Indicators (API). A notification on it will soon be issued by MHRD.

"As per the new norms, students who have an attendance of 75 per cent will be able to give feedback of their teachers. The predominant weightage in evaluating teachers has been given to their teaching, learning and evaluating capacity," a senior HRD ministry official told PTI.

Moreover, the weightage and caps on some research sub-categories has been removed.

Presently, teacher evaluation is based on co-curricular activities and research.

Earlier, the official explained, 30 per cent weightage was given to co-curricular activities and another 30 per cent to research.

Now, under teaching/learning/evaluation category, assistant professors need to get 100 points, associate professor 90 and professors 80.

The new API has also introduced new fields such as field trips, NSS, NCC, sports, etc.

Several teacher bodies had protested against previous evaluation system, introduced in 2010. Hopefully, the latest API will make things better.