Perception and assessment of scholarship in health science institutions in India – gap between the existing and the desirable

Scholarship or scholarly activity is implied as part of the "job requirement" of faculty in health sciences.However, the concept of scholarship other than an emphasis on publications is hitherto lacking in India with no weightage being given to all four components of scholarship as described by Boyer, viz. the scholarship of discovery, application, integration or teaching leave alone a weightage for innovative activities.This paper describes the components of scholarly activities, the current requirement or lack of it of "mandatory" training right from the undergraduate student days in scholarly activities, poor scholarly requirements for postgraduates and a faculty appraisal which values only publications.Metrics have been suggested for all individual five components of scholarship and an emphasis has been laid on training right from the beginning of medical education for the activity to be internalized.