To escape new UGC rules,students queue up to register for PhD programme

In the last two months,15 to 20 students have registered for PhD programme in the Arts faculty,said the dean of the Arts faculty Professor Nitin Vyas.

Professor A R Hingorani,Dean,Faculty of Commerce,who attended the Post Graduate Council meeting,said,“It is true that the number of the students registering for PhD has increased.”

A G Macwan,an official from the university’s Commerce faculty,told Newsline,“While in September the PhD registrations were only two,they have increased to 11 in the last two months.”

While the dean of the Science faculty,Professor Nikhil Desai could not be contacted,a few heads of the departments said the registrations have increased for the programme. Professor Arun Arya,the head of the Botany Department,said,“While only five students had registered themselves for PhD last year,this time it is eight.”

In fact,before the release of the PhD committee gazette by UGC,the MSU had formed a committee in 2008 headed by Genomic Research Centre Director Professor B B Chattoo. While Prof Chattoo agreed that the Post Graduate Council has accepted the committee’s recommendations,he refused to comment on the increasing numbers of registrations for PhD.

Even as MSU was the first to suggest changes in the PhD programme,it could not implement it properly. The Saurashtra University (SU) was the first to implement UGC’s PhD gazette this year,said SU Vice-Chancellor Professor K P Joshipura.

In a recent meeting of the vice-chancellors of all the universities held on August 11,it was agreed to implement the UGC gazette soon,said Joshipura.

The new rules

* UGC has made entrance exam mandatory for PhD and MPhil aspirants

* The entrance exam will be followed by an interview in which the aspirants will discuss the subject of their research

* After admission to PhD programme,the students will have to attend the course work for at least one semester

* The new norms will ensure that before submission of their thesis,the students make a pre-MPhil/PhD presentation in the department for feedback

* It will also be mandatory for them to publish one research paper in a referred journal

* The thesis will be evaluated by two experts,including one outside the state,followed by a viva-voce examination