universities will soon be hiring professor of practice as decided by ugc in its meeting recently to focus on youth skilling in consonance with the industrys needs currently the ugc has approved the draft guidelines for engaging professor of practice in colleges and universities which will be available in the public domain for stakeholders feedback highlighting the need for the professors of practice who would comprise 10 of the sanctioned teaching strength in the universities m jagadesh kumar chairman ugc has said in a statement that in order to provide optimallevel skills to the youth learners should think like employers and employers should think like learners the ugc initiative can enable academic institutions to achieve professional and industry expertise these new positions would enhance resources of the higher education institutions keeping in view industry demands he added job profilethrough the professor of practice process the institutions will have access to consultancy services of industry experts who can also engage in joint research projects these professors will be from diverse fields such as science engineering technology commerce entrepreneurship social sciences literature media legal public administration fine arts armed forces and civil services they will have a service tenure of three years though in exceptional cases it can be extended to four years as well rp tiwari vicechancellor central university of punjab bathinda who is also chairperson of the committee for drafting the professor of practice guidelines tells education times it is now almost two decades that we have been talking about industryacademia interface and bridging the skillgap since even the best graduates must undergo skill development initiatives in the industry after the hiring process it is in this context that the ugcs professor of practice pop should be viewed the practice will be helpful in design development and enriching skillbased curricula for better employment prospects of the students across various sectorsmentoring expertisehe further emphasises pop is not the conduit for reemployment of the retired industry persons this scheme is for those who have the requisite skills and willpower to train young minds three types of pops are stipulated in the guidelines pop funded by the industries pop funded by heis from their own resources and pop on an honorary basis these professors will be involved in activities like facilitating innovation and entrepreneurship projects conducting joint workshops and seminars delivering special lectures and training programmes in collaboration with regular faculty members of the institution tiwari says having professors of practice improves curriculum but more importantly it creates a clearer path for talented practitioners who want to enter academia at midcareerlate career stages says ranjan banerjee dean bitsom highlighting the fact that there are premier institutions in india which have used this concept quite systematically we are just formalising it in a more centralised way which is a good thing he addsphd not a must pointing to the fact that at bitsom a majority of the faculty teaching the winning at the workplace courses are practitioners and around 30 of its curriculum is