Promotion can not be given to employee on the basis of dual degree

CHENNAI: A popular shortcut, completing a three-year course in one year, and calling it a 'dual degree' to secure a job or promotion, was shut down on Wednesday with the Madras high court saying the practice is not permissible. These illegal 'dual degrees' cannot be used for recruitments, promotions or to write teacher eligibility tests, the court said.

The first bench comprising Chief Justice R K Agrawal and Justice M Sathyanarayanan, dismissing a batch of appeals, filed mostly by teacher-aspirants and serving government school teachers, said: "Unless University Grants Commission recognises the degree as equivalent to an undergraduate degree as per Section 23(2) of the UGC Act, 1956, it cannot be said that additional/dual degrees can be considered for promotion or recruitment to a post or to take the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET)."

The matter relates to the practice of doing a particular course to add one more degree, a 'dual degree', by spending an additional year on an unconnected subject. Instead of writing all the papers, they write only the core subject papers. They leave out language papers, saying they are common to both 'degrees'.

In August 2012, a single judge of the court held the practice as illegal and directed the authorities concerned not to promote or recruit people on the basis of 'dual degrees', which were offered mostly by private universities and used mostly by teachers in government schools for a promotion.

Upholding the single judge order, the first bench said: "A perusal of the additional/dual degree of some of the universities would disclose that dual/ additional degree is totally alien to the first degree of three years' duration and the core subject in the additional degree of two years' duration is taught within one year."

A history teacher does not seek promotion to the post of BT (bachelor of teaching) assistant in middle schools to teach the same subject. Instead, he seeks to teach a totally different subject on the basis of a degree obtained after undergoing a one-year course, the single judge had said in the order. The judge also found that a person who acquired the oneyear degree or an open university degree did not get employment in the private sector.

Citing the single judge order, the bench said: "It is only in government service that such a person seeks appointments, promotion, incentives, etc., on the basis of such degrees."