Saturday, September 29, 2018

At this university, it is a long wait for a Ph.D

CHENNAI, SEPTEMBER 29, 2018 00:00 IST

At the Tamil Nadu Teacher Education University, it can take as much as eight years to complete a Ph.D. Candidates who had registered for Ph.D in 2011 are still awaiting a call from the University for their viva, which is the final step before the degree is awarded.

A candidate from Salem had sent five copies of her thesis, including one soft copy in 2016 to the University but is still awaiting a call for viva. Research guides blame the delay on external examiners.

The professors who guide the students blame the university’s norms. One of them is that the thesis should be evaluated by a panel of three examiners, including a faculty from a foreign university.

“The guide must provide a list of 10 experts - five Indian and five foreign, to the University Vice Chancellor, who will select a panel of three persons and returns to the guide. The guide will send out letters to the chosen panelists seeking their consent to evaluate the thesis. If they refuse then the guide must send a fresh panel of names to the VC and the process is repeated until three evaluators give consent,” an academic explained.

The process takes anywhere from a few weeks to several months. The problem lies with foreign evaluators who may refuse to participate in the process.

A TNTEU professor who has several research scholars under her said she had to make several trips to the University to ensure that the evaluation is completed. “I produced a panel of three names but the examiner from Sri Lanka refused and we had to start all over again,” she said.

A research scholar must submit the synopsis of the thesis and within six months the entire thesis. During this time, the guide is expected to forward the synopsis to the examiners and get their willingness.

University Vice Chancellor S. Thangasamy said Ph.D thesis evaluation is highly confidential.

“Sometimes guides provide names of foreign examiners with whom they are not familiar. Or they submit the names of professors which are either wrong or inappropriate for the evaluation. This will naturally delay the process. We have so far cleared 100 theses. There are probably around five students whose thesis is pending. Candidates can approach the University and we will sort it out for them,” he said.

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