Getting MPhil, doctorates not easy anymore

The regulations are expected to streamline research activities across the country and also tone up the quality of thesis.

The UGC (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Awards of MPhil/PhD Degree) Regulation 2009 has also fixed the number of scholars a supervisor could guide at a time.

One of the evaluating experts should be from a university, which is outside the state from where the candidate comes. If the university desires, it could have an examiner from outside the country also. To ensure uniform quality of research across different institutions, students would be given admission through entrance test followed by an interview. Doctoral candidates would discuss their research area at the time of the interview.

Number of students

“All universities, institutions, deemed-to-be universities and colleges/institutions of national importance shall lay down and decide, on an annual basis, a predetermined and manageable number of MPhil and doctoral students, depending on the number of available eligible faculty supervisors. A supervisor shall not have, at any given point of time, more than eight PhD scholars and five MPhil scholars,” the regulations said.

Admission to the PhD programme should be either direct or through MPhil programme.

The allocation of the supervisor for a selected student should be decided by the department in a formal manner depending on the number of students per faculty member, the available specialisation among the faculty supervisors and the research interest of the student.

After admission, each MPhil/PhD student should undertake a course work for a minimum period of one semester. The course work should be treated as pre-MPhil/PhD preparation and must include a course on research methodology which might include quantitative methods and computer applications. It might also involve reviewing of published research in the relevant field. The individual universities should decide the minimum qualifying requirement for allowing a student to proceed further with the writing of the dissertation.

On  satisfactory completion of course work and research methodology, the scholars should undertake research work and produce a draft thesis within a reasonable time, as stipulated by the institution concerned.

Prior to submission of the thesis, the student should make a pre-MPhil/PhD presentation in the department that might be open to all faculty members and research students, for getting feedback and comments, which might be suitably incorporated into the draft thesis. PhD candidates should publish one research paper in a referred journal before the submission of the thesis for adjudication and produce evidence for the same in the form of an acceptance letter or reprint. On receipt of satisfactory evaluation reports, the scholars should undergo a viva voce test.