Amritsar, February 21
The state government has laid down fresh criteria for the recruitment of lecturers in all 240 aided and unaided colleges and four universities of the state. The Punjab Public Service Commission has been asked to adopt the guidelines which would make the selections transparent, apart from ending nepotism and political interference.

While the Guru Nanak Dev University Syndicate was quick to adopt the fresh criterion in toto today for all 100 colleges affiliated to it, the guidelines would be implemented with slight changes while selecting lecturers in the university. With its introduction the candidates would be selected for interviews on the basis of score cards prepared on the basis of basic qualifications, extra curricular activities, publications in the national and international journals and experience.

Dr Nisha Shaad, Director, Public Instructions, was also present at the Syndicate meeting.

The norms for inviting candidates for interviews has been fixed. For one vacancy a maximum of six candidates will be called for two vacancies a maximum of 10 candidates, for three vacancies 12 candidates, for four vacancies 14 candidates and for five vacancies 16 candidates subject to eligibility, would be invited for the interview. Beyond that for each additional vacancy three candidates would be invited.

The state government has also prepared the criteria for screening of applications for short listing the highest ranking candidates.

The break up of the score card prepared on the basis of qualifications’ experiences is basic qualifications (30 marks), higher qualifications (15 marks), extra-curricular activities (15 marks), publications in national/international referral journals or books (15 marks) and experience (5 marks).

When contacted Dr S.P. Singh, Vice-Chancellor, said all interviews from today would be made on the basis of the fresh criteria.