The universities across the country are buzzing with activity as several students are registering themselves for their Doctoral course. A survey reveals that a major percentage of these candidates belong to the teaching community comprising mostly of lecturers. Most of them are lecturers and some of them are teachers. Gaining a higher education is not a bad idea after all. If post graduates and teachers are able to earn a Doctorate in their pet subjects it is their students in turn who stand to gain from their vast knowledge.
 In such circumstances one is likely to think that the future of the education system is secure.
Yet a talk with several of these candidates about their sudden zest to apply for a doctoral course, resulted in bewildering answers. Surprisingly, the answers had little or nothing to do with the difficulty of finding a guide, choosing a topic, submitting a synopsis or registering for the Doctoral programme. Nor was it about the uniqueness of their subject or what they hope to achieve at the end of the research. They did not seem to be unduly bothered about “difficult to please” guides or the system that may pose objections to their findings. These reasons seemed to be the hassles of their seniors.
Today the scene has changed for potential research students. Obtaining a PhD has become a necessity to shape their careers. Barring a few candidates who expressed a genuine affinity for the subject, the rest considered it to be a matter of routine which one has to go through if one hoped to get a better pay packet.
According to these students, it was an easier proposition to get a doctorate than clearing the “wily NET” which has become a mandatory criterion to get plush jobs of lecturers in colleges under the UGC umbrella. In fact many of these candidates already possessed an M Phil degree to make their passage through the Ph D course a less cumbersome exercise. These candidates made no attempt to disguise their contempt for the system. On the contrary they were very vocal about their woes. Apparently they have no say in the issue because educational institutions have made it very clear that better    qualifications  fetch better remunerations. With the result that even teachers with experience of more than a decade have got into this rigmarole of becoming “Doctors” in some subject or the other.
When we observe the area under discussion with a positive frame of mind, it is heartening to note that the educational institutions are inadvertently pushing their teachers to upgrade themselves and in turn raise a better crop of students. Yet the effort appears to have gone in vain because the staff members do not relish the idea of being pushed into goals simply for a hike in their salaries. As members of the teaching community they recognised that earning a doctorate in an area of interest was a privilege and an honour if and only if it is earmarked with tenacious perseverance to explore the unknown and embossed with an undying passion for the subject. Nevertheless many teachers and lecturers have registered for a PhD and hope to trudge through triumphantly despite domestic and professional odds. They are still to get over their teething problems and start anew as students just when they thought that they had settled down in a career.
The guides who were consulted on the subject revealed that their “teacher students” were not very different from regular students as they expected “the easiest way out” even when they were working for the PhD, besides, these candidates lacked a sense of commitment which is very frustrating to the guides.
It is really a pity that such a brilliant idea should have boomeranged so badly. It is high time that the educators and their employers realise that there is more to teaching than merely being highly qualified. After all, the concept of doing a doctoral course is to read up widely on the subject and gain an in–depth knowledge on the subject.  A passionate teacher will do this homework on his or her own with or without the PhD carrot dangling in front of them merely for the sheer joy of delving deeply into their favourite topic. Moreover we are living in a technologically advanced world today; information on just about anything under the sun is available at the click of a button. There is really no point in compiling data available on the internet and submitting a thesis when one has no unique perception on the subject.
Teachers strongly opined that managements of educational institutions must mull over this issue and instead of making the PhD criterion dangle over the heads of lecturers like a Damocles sword they could encourage only the candidates who want to pursue research in exclusive areas having research value. This way, lots of precious time and effort spent on re-inventing the proverbial wheel could be salvaged and utilised for more realistic ends in the teaching scene.