Govt to soon let IIMs offer PhD to grads

HRD MINISTRY HAS HELD DISCUSSIONS WITH HIGHER EDUCATION REGULATORS AND IS LIKELY TO FINALISE THE NORMS SOON

NEWDELHI: The prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) may soon be able to admit students directly for PhDs after graduation as the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry after consultations with higher education sector regulators UGC and AICTE is set to finalise norms in this regard, a senior official said.

“It was felt in a meeting last week that exceptional students who have completed four-year-graduation with an outstanding CGPA of 8 may be directly admitted to PhD by the IIMs. The duration of the PhD programme would be four-year, however.The decision may soon be conveyed to the concerned institutions,” the official added.

A proposal was received from the Indian Institute of Management , Bangalore, earlier seeking that the IIMs should be allowed to directly admit students to Phd like done by the IITs and also under the Prime Minister Research Fellowship.

The official said the after discussions with regulators it emerged that there could be two routes through which students could be allowed to enroll into PhD programmes. One was enrolling them after post-graduation. One way is enroll students after class 12, plus three years of graduation, plus two years of post-graduation and then the three-year PhD programme, an official said.

The other route is class 12 plus four year graduation course and then a four-year PhD programme, the official added.

In both cases, the minimum time to complete a PhD would be 20 years beginning for early schooling, he said. The focus of the government is to boost research and for this the key is to bring the best talent into it, the official said.

“This is actually a positive impact of the legislation which allowed IIMs to confer degrees on their students. Now, the IIMs can offer PhD programmes instead of fellowship programmes and naturally, they are expected to be more popular,” the official said.