The new guidelines for M.Phil/Ph.D are in and woe betide any university/institute that does not follow these guidelines. We have been breaking our heads over the guidelines for the past few weeks. At the outset let me state that some of the guidelines do make sense given the way Ph.D. degrees are handed out but if the UGC thought that the new guidelines will make our Ph.D. system more accountable and productive they are way off the mark. While the entire guidelines can be accessed at the UGC site, I will just point out the most problematic one out here at least for the scientists:
"All students will be admitted to M.Phil program only. They have to do 2 years M.Phil and then only can go for Ph.D. Further, to complete the M.Phil program successfully, they need course work and one paper. Peer-reviewed."
I do not know whether to laugh or cry. Our students do course work the first two semester. The first semester is tough and they spend their time in the class room and in the lab, learning the techniques. They start working in the lab in the next semester. But they also have to write a term paper and present a paper. So the time spent in the lab is not sufficient to generate any data. They really start working only from the Summer break. It takes a student (all of us went through the same thing) at least two years to understand what we are doing. The first few experiments always fails. A hypothesis starts forming somewhere in the third year. The speed picks up in the fourth year and by the fifth year, you have a paper written up. Then you start plugging the loop holes, you submit it for review, the reviewers ask for more experiments, you do it, and somewhere towards the end the fifth year, a paper in a fairly good journal gets published. So how does the UGC expect a good publication from a M. Phil student? On one hand they want to categorize journals and want us to publish in good ones (there are incentives built in for promotions) and on the other hand you are going to force us to publish half-baked work in shoddy journals.
The students are freaking out. The faculty is upset. But who is listening? If a student does Ph.D from India and wants a faculty job, they need a certificate stating that all the rules and regulations were adhered to at the time of award of degree. The administration will not issue such a certificate unless we adhere to the norms.
So there it is. I do not know what will happen in the coming days. All I know is that it is scary.
"All students will be admitted to M.Phil program only. They have to do 2 years M.Phil and then only can go for Ph.D. Further, to complete the M.Phil program successfully, they need course work and one paper. Peer-reviewed."
I do not know whether to laugh or cry. Our students do course work the first two semester. The first semester is tough and they spend their time in the class room and in the lab, learning the techniques. They start working in the lab in the next semester. But they also have to write a term paper and present a paper. So the time spent in the lab is not sufficient to generate any data. They really start working only from the Summer break. It takes a student (all of us went through the same thing) at least two years to understand what we are doing. The first few experiments always fails. A hypothesis starts forming somewhere in the third year. The speed picks up in the fourth year and by the fifth year, you have a paper written up. Then you start plugging the loop holes, you submit it for review, the reviewers ask for more experiments, you do it, and somewhere towards the end the fifth year, a paper in a fairly good journal gets published. So how does the UGC expect a good publication from a M. Phil student? On one hand they want to categorize journals and want us to publish in good ones (there are incentives built in for promotions) and on the other hand you are going to force us to publish half-baked work in shoddy journals.
The students are freaking out. The faculty is upset. But who is listening? If a student does Ph.D from India and wants a faculty job, they need a certificate stating that all the rules and regulations were adhered to at the time of award of degree. The administration will not issue such a certificate unless we adhere to the norms.
So there it is. I do not know what will happen in the coming days. All I know is that it is scary.
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