Changes on anvil for PhD in JU

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, November 2

Jadavpur University is all set to change the rules governing its PhD programmes from December to stop plagiarisation of theses and upgrade its quality.
The university has sought recommendations from its arts, science and engineering faculties. The arts and science faculties have already come up with these. The engineering faculty — which faces maximum cases of plagiarisation — is still framing these.
“The university will make several changes needing a change in the university’s statute and act. That cannot be done without passing it at the university’s executive council. We hope all the recommendations are ready by November so that the university can make the necessary changes by December,” said a university official.
If the recommendations are any indication, there might soon be a bar on any Masters degree holder applying for a PhD. Candidates might soon need to clear a written examination followed by interview. His academic record too would be checked. However, those clearing exams like NET and GATE could directly appear for the interview without taking the written test.
Constitution of the doctoral committee, too, could see a change. Till date engineering, science and arts faculties had one such committee each. But burdened with over 150 PhD proposals, they rarely had the time to check if the proposed thesis was worth pursuing or already pursued. But now there is proposal to set up a separate committee for each faculty. The students and guides would have to appear before the committee from time to time and the committee would monitor the thesis’ progress.
JU is also planning to allow inter-disciplinary PhD. Students can choose inter-departmental as well as inter-faculty topics involving a department from the arts faculty, one from science and one from engineering. In case of inter-faculty PhD, the university would decide who the PhD guide or guides would be.
Once the PhD topic is decided, the students would also be asked to undergo ‘course work’ or a basic course to orient all students to do a PhD.
Students who are able to clear the course would go ahead with the PhD work. Those opting out of course work would have to clear M.Phil first.
The university is also debating on the size of the PhD thesis. Some teachers emphasise on both quality and quantity (number of pages); other emphasise on quality.
Students might also have to make a PhD thesis pre-submission defence before the doctoral committee and present a seminar before the thesis is sent for evaluation.
The evaluation pattern too could see changes. The thesis might have to be re-written if the evaluators have minor questions. The university is also likely to fix the elegibility criteria of PhD evaluators, denying PhD guides the independence to choose them.
Mou.Chankarborty@hindustantimes.com