With a PhD, explore careers beyond academics

A PhD degree marks the beginning of an academic career and can be termed as “a licence to do research”. A great deal of initiatives have been taken by the universities in recent years to enhance the employability of PhD graduates. Many universities collaborate with industries and the probable field of work in the PhD programme is as per the industrial demand. At present academia is eager to keep industrial employers in academic board for curriculum design. A research programme is generally well-structured, based on product value, unlike earlier days when PhD work would focus only on individual academic status enrichment.

The National Education Policy 2020 retains the existing PhD admission process. Higher educational institutions (HEIs) have to conduct Research Entrance Test (RET) in the form of written examination and interview, through which the PhD aspirants are selected on merit basis. The aspirants who have cleared state/national level exams such as NET, GATE, SLET etc., need not write RET but have to appear for interview.

Research is an important component for quality education. Quality in teaching in higher education is possible only when a teacher is up-to-date with the new developments in a particular field, which is achievable only when a teacher is research oriented.

Therefore, HEIs generally prefer to employ PhD holders as faculties, so that they can effectively contribute to the pedagogy. At present universities and colleges select teachers, based on academic performance indicator, which reserves major points for doctoral training and scholarly activities.

Though academics is the most preferred choice, a PhD holder has scope in non-academic fields too.

A PhD graduate will have opportunities of being employed in a research laboratory of national and international repute. There is also a scope to find postdoctoral fellowship. Also, many industries and business sectors employ PhD graduates in areas such as pollution control, innovation, planning, human resource utility etc.

In the current times, there is a high demand for researchers and scientists in the healthcare sector and allied sectors that need innovation in equipment, instrumentation, medical planning etc. Also, PhD holders are recruited in various research regulatory boards, which includes research grant agency, national research organisation, research education, science and engineering councils.

(The author is the dean of a school of basic and applied sciences)