Allahabad University will this year felicitate its teachers with the Dronacharya award for their performance and it will be the students who will assess their performance.
The assessment of the teacher would be based on the secret feedback of more than 30,000 students. This is the first time that such an exercise is being undertaken. The felicitation ceremony will be a part of the university's annual convocation scheduled tentatively for September 23.
According to Jaya Kapoor, Allahabad University Public Relations Officer, "The central varsity plans to identify one teacher for each of its four faculties — Arts, Science, Commerce, and Law — and then give away the Dronacharya Award for the first time at its forthcoming annual convocation function that it plans to hold in September."
The teachers would be assessed on the feedback of the students who would rate them against various parameters that include enthusiasm for teaching, regularity in taking classes to knowledge, and command over the latest research and developments concerning their specific fields, among others.
The feedback from the students would be taken online and would be kept strictly confidential. The initiative is designed to help the university identify specific areas where it should get a particular teacher to improve and also motivate the teachers to take regular classes and ensure good interaction with students during their lectures.
"The information regarding this has been made available on the university website. The varsity has also introduced a feedback form for the current students on its official website. The feedback form gives students an opportunity to register their response towards the teachers who teach them in their classroom," Kapoor said.
The form finalised as part of the process involves two steps. "In the first step, all the necessary directions and information have been made available and students need to fill in the basic details there. In the second, students need to mark their responses as asked," she added.
She said the feedback will also help to assess the performance of individual faculty members and facilitate Uttar Pradesh's Allahabad University to reward high performers. It will also help the teachers in enhancing their performance.
