No PhD registrations at MSU for past five months

Vadodara: Research, an important component of any higher education institute, has come to a standstill at M S University as no scholar has been registered for a PhD degree for the past five months.
Scores of meritorious boys and girls are facing troubles owing to the inordinate delay in registration for PhD work at the campus, which has been halted since February.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) had recently amended rules for PhD admissions, whereby aspirants are not required to take university entrance exams to enrol for PhD programmes. Starting from the current academic year, PhD students will be given admission based on their National Eligibility Test (NET) and State Eligibility Test (SET) scores, as per the amended rules.
But MSU vice-chancellor Vijay Srivastava has insisted that the PhD registrations will be done only in June and December every year.
Ironically, even as July has ended, the university authorities have not started registration of new PhD students, sources said.
They added that PhD aspirants are frequently approaching deans of several faculties to inquire about the status of PhD registrations, but the deans themselves have no clue on the process. Meanwhile, many PhD aspirants have approached other educational institutes.
“Research scholars are the backbone of any higher education institute. The reputation of an institute depends to a certain extent on the enrolment of research scholars,” said a senior teacher, adding that if the situation persists, the number of PhD scholars in the university will fall drastically. This in turn will have far-reaching implications, including the university’s ranking, the teacher added.
Earlier, PhD students at the campus were struggling due to the inordinate delay in the formation of panels of PhD thesis examiners.