Students in a spot over Mumbai university’s late call on PhD selection

The Mumbai University has recently finalised the process for selecting PhD candidates, almost a year after the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued new and tougher guidelines for awarding PhD degrees.

This was done in an attempt to improve the quality of PhD students and research in India. As a result, many students registered since the last 10 months run the risk of being disqualified.

“The deans had finalised  guidelines in the first week of May and we submitted them to the acting vice chancellor. Despite having accepted the rules in principle when they were announced last July, the university did nothing about it,” said a university official.

The university is now wondering how to get the students who have been registered as per the old rules to meet the new norms.

The new regulations mandate that a university must conduct an entrance test to admit doctoral students, but MU has been admitting students without one, and these students may be disqualified.

Acting vice chancellor Chandra Krishnamurthy said that several of the PhD candidates who had enrolled in the interim period have already done quite a bit of research. “How do we conduct an entrance test for them now?” she questioned.

University’s Board of College and University Development (BCUD) director, VN Magare, said that the university will refer the cases to the UGC and ask it to suggest a way out. “We had accepted the norms last year itself. But there’s always some time required for the university to study the rules, adapt them to local needs, and get them approved by various university bodies,” said Magare.