Govt proposes to allow pursuing PhD after bachelor’s degree, one-year master's

India’s higher education regulator is proposing to allow students in colleges and universities to pursue PhD after one- year master's and four-year bachelor’s degree, a move that may augment more candidates to pursue doctoral degrees in the country.

A candidate seeking admission in a PhD course after a “4-year/8-semester Bachelor’s degree with research should have a minimum CGPA of 7.5 out of 10”, the University Grants Commission (UGC) proposed on March 17.

As per the draft proposal, a candidate with one-year (two-semester) master's degree programme after a four-year UG degree with at least 55 percent marks in aggregate or its equivalent grade 'B' in the UGC 10-point scale too is eligible to do so.

So far, in the university system, students were allowed to pursue doctoral degrees either after a two-year masters’ degree or MPhil degree. The broad changes proposed by the higher education regulator UGC on March 17 are in sync with the recommendation of the new education policy (NEP).

To be sure, the existing two eligibility criteria pertaining to two-year master's and MPhil will continue to be valid for pursuing doctoral degrees like earlier.

The proposal also underlines that underprivileged students including those from the Economically Weaker Section (EWS), will get a relaxation of 5 percent of marks. It means reserved category students will be eligible to apply for PhD courses even if they have scored just 50 percent mark in their master's degree.

“A relaxation of 5 percent of marks, from 55 percent to 50 percent, or an equivalent relaxation of grade, may be allowed for those belonging to SC/ST/OBC (non-creamy layer)/Differently-Abled, Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and other categories of candidates as per the decision 3 of the Commission from time to time, or for those who had obtained their master’s degree before 19th September 1991,” as per the draft proposal of the UGC.

The regulator, however, has underlined that the eligibility marks and the relaxation of 5 percent to the categories mentioned above “are permissible based only on the qualifying marks without including the grace mark procedures, if any”.

Similarly, a relaxation of 0.5 score, that is CGPA of 7 out of 10 or an equivalent relaxation of grade is proposed to be allowed for those belonging to SC/ST/OBC (non-creamy layer)/Differently-Abled, EWS and other categories of candidates as per the decision of the Commission from time to time.

PhD programme shall be for a minimum duration of two years excluding course work, and a maximum of six years. But, women candidates and persons with disabilities (more than 40 percent disability) may be allowed a relaxation of two years for a PhD, which means instead of six years, they may be allowed eight years to complete their doctoral degree.

Besides, the UGC has proposed that women candidates may be provided maternity leave and child care leave for up to 240 days once in the entire duration of PhD.

Admission rule:

While a college or university can admit 60 percent of the seat capacity through the national eligibility test (NET) and Junior research fellowship (JRF) among others,  the rest 40 percent can be done via entrance tests conducted by individual institutions or universities.

But UGC may implement a common entrance for this and in such a scenario it will be binding on individual universities.

"All Universities shall admit Ph.D. Scholars through a National Eligibility Test (NET) or National Entrance Test or an Entrance test conducted at the level of individual universities. Provided that, any circular/notification/communication by the UGC/Ministry of Education, Govt. of India regarding the conduct of a common entrance test for this purpose shall be applicable and binding on the Universities concerned (and covered under such a circular/notification/communication),"the UGC's draft plan reads.

An interview/viva-voce has to be organised by the university or college concerned wherein the candidates are required to discuss their research interest/area through a presentation before a duly constituted Departmental Research Committee, the draft policy said.

The selection of qualified candidates should be based on interview/viva-voce for JRF and NET. For the candidates who have qualified for the university level entrance test, the selection shall be evaluated in the ratio of 70: 30 for scores in the written test and 30 in the interview. Merit list for both NET/JRF candidates and candidates coming through institution-level entrance shall be separately published.

The interview and viva voce at the institutions shall also be considered, if a candidate possesses the competence for the proposed research, the research work can be undertaken at the institution or college and the research topic is relevant.