UGC proposes NET for PhD admissions; students slam move
Bringing a marking system in the National Eligibility Test (NET) and taking a step towards ending the entrance examinations conducted by universities for PhD programmes, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to make the NET as “one national entrance test” for PhD admissions.
UGC Chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar said on Thursday that from the upcoming academic session of 20242025, the universities in the country will have the opportunity to utilise NET scores for admissions to PhD programmes, replacing the need for separate entrance tests conducted by individual universities and higher education institutions (HEIs).
UGC Secretary Manish Joshi said in a public notice sent to all HEIs that the UGC had constituted an expert committee to review provisions of NET and based on its recommendations the UGC decided on March 13 that the NET score could be used for PhD admissions. He said NET candidates will be declared eligible in three categories, such as admission to PhD with Junior Research Fellowship ( JRF),
eligible to be appointed as Assistant Professor and only for PhD programmes.
Professor Joshi added in the notice that the NET result will be declared in percentile along with marks obtained by a candidate to utilise the marks for admission to PhD. Students who qualify for NET and PhD eligibility will get 70% weightage for test scores and 30% weightage for interview for admission to PhD programmes.
The students’ organisations, however, said the notice was exclusionary and made NET mandatory for PhD admissions. “This centralised mandate of making NET a compulsory criteria for PhD across the country in all the institutions, is likely to see the removal of university level entrance tests for PhD,” the Students Federation of India (SFI) said.