TED NewsDesk, New Delhi: Education must be left to educationists, said the Supreme Court on Monday while setting aside an Allahabad High Court’s 2018 verdict. According to the judgment, a person with an MEd qualification cannot get an appointment as an assistant professor for the subject of education. This controversy centred around whether an MEd degree should be treated as an equivalent degree to MA (Education) for appointment to the post of an assistant professor as published in March 2014 by the Uttar Pradesh Higher Education Service Selection Commission (UPHESSC).
The UPHESSC was assisted by an expert panel of four educationists who said that for the post of assistant professor (teaching), Faculty of Arts, both M.Ed. and MA (Education) should be acceptable. Based on this opinion, the employing authority UPHESSC thus came out with an erratum on July 11, 2016, which permitted candidates possessing the two degrees to compete for said posts.
However, a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court, on May 14, 2018, held the opinion that while MA (Education) is a Master’s degree in the subject concerned, MEd is not so, as it is only a training qualification. The conclusion was that an MEd qualified person should not be appointed to the post of assistant professor in education. Consequently, the erratum dated July 11, 2016, was abandoned, the High Court had held.
A bench comprising Justices S K Kaul, Aniruddha Bose, and Krishna Murari found the High Court’s verdict faulty and set it aside by allowing the appeal of a candidate- Anand Yadav. “We say so since matters of education must be left to educationists, of course, subject to being governed by the relevant statutes and regulations. It is not the function of this Court to sit as an expert body over the decision of the experts, especially when the experts are all eminent people as apparent from the names as set out,” the bench said.
“We are, thus, of the view that the impugned judgment is not sustainable and has to be set aside, and the challenge to the corrigendum dated July 11, is repelled. The result having already been computed and awaiting declaration should now be declared forthwith so that persons looking for employment, as per the requisite eligibility criteria, can be employed. So that the students have the benefit of education from the persons so employed,” it said.
