State to conduct study on Quality of PhD thesis

Even as the number of scholars enrolling for Ph D thesis in Tamil Nadu as well as rest of India has been on the rise every year, the quality of research and their outcome have become questionable of late. According to UGC records, the enrolment in PhDs has jumped by 50 percent between 2011 and 2017 across the country.

Alarmed over the spurt in registrations, a study will be soon conducted in the universities of Tamil Nadu on the quality of PhD thesis for which doctoral degrees have been awarded in the last 10 years. Welcoming the government’s decision, experts in academia claim that such a study is the need of the hour. “Except for few Indian Institute of Technology institutions, other universities do not have quality PhD,” says professor E Balagurusamy, the former vice chancellor of Anna University.

He also pointed out at the global level, quality of Ph.D. in India lies at the bottom of the list. “The study on PhD.would help not only the students but also for the professor”, he added.

The professor said that the study should be transparent, and it has to be made public. “The research should go in-depth since most of the Ph.D. research is purchased and even it is bribed for publishing thesis,” he said. 

A former professor of University of Madras K Santhana Krishnanan said that research productivity and impact remain relatively weaker for universities especially in Tamil Nadu.

“USA and UK tops the list in giving quality Ph.D. at the global level”, he said adding that a university’s commitment to providing sufficient staff and support for its students may well translate into its postgraduate training – particularly for more structured Ph.D. programs.

“The study, initiated by UGC, on PhD should be done periodically so that universities will change its formula for competing at the global level,” he said. In Asia, top of the ranking is largely dominated by Chinese universities while India is not far behind. Its highest-ranked institution, the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), is ranked 13th overall, and another four top-20 spots also go to IITs.

According to an official of the Intellectual Property of India, about 90 per cent of research which is coming out of IIT Madras is good. ““However, the research projects of many colleges which are coming to our organization are not that good and the technical aspects of those research are not up to the mark,” she said. “We reject 50 per cent of them.”

At present, there are 13 state universities coming under the aegis of Tamil Nadu Higher Education Department.  Though five universities such as Anna University, Bharathiyar University, University of Madras, Alagappa University and Periyar University were qualified for the ‘Institute of eminence’ status by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the quality of PhD provided by these institutions are not on par with international standards says B Krishnakumar, a retired staff of Madras School of Economics. He said most of the people pursue PhD programme just to put “Dr” to their names or get promotions in government organisations.

“Western countries are years ahead of us in terms of path-breaking research. In India, despite having skilled people, we end up succumbing to the lure of selecting patently irrelevant topics for research,” he said adding research, that is relevant for the current world, were not taken up.

The study assumes significance as a concern raised by various quarters about degrading the quality of research in the country and duplication of subjects on which PhDs are done. This exercise is initiated by the University Grants Commission (UGC), which expressed concern over the quality of the PhD degrees in universities.

Accordingly, a team would be visiting Tamil Nadu and would conduct the study over a period of six months. 

The aim of the research will involve the PhD thesis awarded in different disciplines by various central universities, state universities, state private universities, and deemed-to-be universities during the last one decade. The study is expected to give findings at state-level with regard to the quality of PhD thesis indicating the quality aspects proposed by the stakeholders.

The research team will be going to each university in the State and would collect the data of doctoral programmes. The quality of the programme and theses will be assessed and would be given a rating. After the findings, recommendation will be given to the institutions on the improvement. In addition, the data, which is collected from the universities, will also be used for ranking system.