Part-time PHD courses for working professionals likely to be rolled out

NEW DELHI: Universities in India will now be able to offer parttime doctoral programmes to working professionals, provided they attend at least six months of the course full time, according to officials at the high education regulator.

The provision will be a part of the UGC (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of PH.D Degree) Regulations, 2022, which will soon be notified by the education ministry, officials of the University Grants Commission said on Saturday.

The regulations allow parttime PHD programmes, provided applicants satisfy eligibility conditions for full-time PHD programmes. The changes will come into effect in the upcoming academic session.

“Their PHD work will be assessed in the same way as done for full-time PHD students. The applicants for the part-time PHD will be working professionals and, hence, they won’t be eligible for PHD fellowship,” said UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar.

The doctoral candidates will have to attend at least six months of course work in full time. The professionals will also need to submit a no-objection certificate (NOC) from employers. “The applicants for parttime PHD will have to provide a NOC from their organisations stating that the employee is permitted to pursue studies on a part-time basis, the employee is permitted to devote sufficient time for research, facilities in the employee’s field of research are available at the place of work, and the employee will be relieved from duty, if required, to complete coursework,” said Kumar.

Many Indian Institutes of

Technology, including the one in Delhi, offer part-time research programmes with similar norms. Officials at several central universities, including Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, said they do not currently offer part-time PHD courses.

“No such provision is there in Delhi University. All PHD programmes are offered in regular, full-time mode to ensure high quality research,” said Rajesh Jha, political science professor at Rajdhani College.

“PHD is a full-time course in JNU. However, the university allows teaching and research fellows employed only in Delhincr to register as candidates,” an official said, seeking anonymity. “Working professionals from other fields are not allowed as of now.”

Affiliated universities will be allowed to set their own criteria for the part-time courses. “Since universities are autonomous, the academic councils of the universities will be allowed to decide their own entry qualifications for the part-time PHD programmes,” a UGC official said, seeking anonymity.

Their PHD work will be assessed in the same way as done for full-time PHD students...

M JAGADESH KUMAR, Chairperson, UGC