New norms leave AU profs hunting for PhD aspirants
Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com
Chennai:09.11.2018
A section of professors at Anna University, the state’s premier technical education institute, is on a search for research scholars to satisfy the new promotion policy rules that mandate guiding at least one candidate for PhD. The rules also make it compulsory for an assistant professor to supervise one scholar through a doctorate to become an associate professor.
Until recently, most students preferred ‘lenient’ faculty members as their PhD guides, leaving teachers considered strict in the lurch. Official data suggests that some teachers were guiding more than a dozen PhD candidates each at a time when others were struggling to find even a single student.
This is in contravention of the university statute which allows a supervisor to guide only 12 PhD students simultaneously.
Discrepancies were noticed even in top government institutions, functioning under the university in Chennai, particularly among faculty members of the departments of electronics and information technology.
One faculty member from the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), said the university’s statute was not on a par with the guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC), apex body governing higher education in India. The guidelines say that one faculty member can be attached to only eight students at a time. “When other state varsities like University of Madras are following UGC’s guidelines, Anna University has been conveniently neglecting it,” he added, on a condition of anonymity.
Anna University vicechancellor M K Surappa said changes had been brought during an academic council meeting. “The upper ceiling has been reduced from 12 to 8 now,” he said.
Some aggrieved CEG teachers also want the university to do away the norm mandating PhD aspirants to get the consent of the supervisor concerned while applying for the doctorate programme. “Ideally, a committee led by the Heads of the Departments (HODs) should allot supervisors to applicants based on the area of interest. Instead here the students are allowed to choose their supervisors. This will have an adverse impact on the quality of PhD produced,” the faculty member added.
Surappa said they planned to increase the bar further so that not every applicant gets an opportunity to do PhD in CEG, AC Tech and School of Architecture and Planning in Guindy and Madras Institute of Technology in Chromepet.
Anna University holds the record for producing the most number of PhDs in the country, churning out, on an average, three a day.
Changes had been brought during an academic council meeting. The upper ceiling (on guiding PhD students) has been reduced from 12 to 8 now
M K Surappa |
ANNA UNIVERSITY VC
Ram.Sundaram@timesgroup.com
Chennai:09.11.2018
A section of professors at Anna University, the state’s premier technical education institute, is on a search for research scholars to satisfy the new promotion policy rules that mandate guiding at least one candidate for PhD. The rules also make it compulsory for an assistant professor to supervise one scholar through a doctorate to become an associate professor.
Until recently, most students preferred ‘lenient’ faculty members as their PhD guides, leaving teachers considered strict in the lurch. Official data suggests that some teachers were guiding more than a dozen PhD candidates each at a time when others were struggling to find even a single student.
This is in contravention of the university statute which allows a supervisor to guide only 12 PhD students simultaneously.
Discrepancies were noticed even in top government institutions, functioning under the university in Chennai, particularly among faculty members of the departments of electronics and information technology.
One faculty member from the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), said the university’s statute was not on a par with the guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC), apex body governing higher education in India. The guidelines say that one faculty member can be attached to only eight students at a time. “When other state varsities like University of Madras are following UGC’s guidelines, Anna University has been conveniently neglecting it,” he added, on a condition of anonymity.
Anna University vicechancellor M K Surappa said changes had been brought during an academic council meeting. “The upper ceiling has been reduced from 12 to 8 now,” he said.
Some aggrieved CEG teachers also want the university to do away the norm mandating PhD aspirants to get the consent of the supervisor concerned while applying for the doctorate programme. “Ideally, a committee led by the Heads of the Departments (HODs) should allot supervisors to applicants based on the area of interest. Instead here the students are allowed to choose their supervisors. This will have an adverse impact on the quality of PhD produced,” the faculty member added.
Surappa said they planned to increase the bar further so that not every applicant gets an opportunity to do PhD in CEG, AC Tech and School of Architecture and Planning in Guindy and Madras Institute of Technology in Chromepet.
Anna University holds the record for producing the most number of PhDs in the country, churning out, on an average, three a day.
Changes had been brought during an academic council meeting. The upper ceiling (on guiding PhD students) has been reduced from 12 to 8 now
M K Surappa |
ANNA UNIVERSITY VC
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