PhD, Doctoral studies gaining popularity

Hyderabad: The Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry recently notified that PhD will be mandatory for the direct recruitment of assistant professors in Indian universities. From the year 2021, PhD Degree is Mandatory for recruitment of university teachers. Also there was another news in the media that UGC (University Grants Commission) would like to review Ph.D theses submitted in the past ten years.

The move comes following concerns raised about degrading quality of research in the country. UGC is also plans to conduct a study on "Quality of Ph.D thesis in Indian Universities. Osmania University recently awarded over 800 Ph.D degrees during its 80th convocation on June 17 in the city.

A city based company, Prashas Research Consulting Pvt Ltd has announced that it is specialised in offering guidance, support and mentoring to those aspirants who want to seek admission or register in to PhD program.

Why PhD and Doctoral studies are in news now? Why are not many people in India research-oriented? Very few graduates register for PhD programmes , even as in some universities there is more demand but seats are limited . Even those who register, don't produce much path-breaking results. But, Prashas decided to change this. It aims to rope in more students into doctoral studies. It has been providing admission guidance and mentorship to well over 1000 PhD aspirants in the last 18 months and helped them register for Doctorate programmes in many universities informed Shakir Ali of Prashas Research. 'It is everyone's dream to earn the title of Doctor (Dr) ahead of their name. But, many don't know and how, where to register for PhD programme and what subject to choose. So we help them achieve their dream" he added.

Does a PhD offer an advantage when looking for a job?. The answer to this is big no. But, yes, it can serve as a discriminator in getting promoted says Dr. Siddaram. However, there are people who have different opinion on this. A PhD outside of academia has considerable value as it certifies that you have mastered one small area of original thinking, observes Laxma Reddy, a research assistant at a private lab at Patancheru.

Southern states- Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka - have one third of Ph.D enrolments in the country. Nearly 80,000 students are said to be pursuing research in subjects every year. But not all get awarded Doctoral Degrees. The number of Ph.D graduates has gone up in this country over the last few decades. It is stated that first Ph D was awarded in India in 1904. It is also stated that there were only a dozen doctorates in this country till the year 1920. Till the year 2000, there were just 326 institutions which awarded Ph.Ds. But, this number has gone up to 910 by the year 2018. The top-ranked universities in India grant around 2,500 science PhDs each year. We get 800 chemistry PhDs a year from top Universities.

As per the last count, there were 24,000 Ph D holders in all disciplines from about 900 institutions in 2017. According to the UGC--University Grants Commission, the number of science PhD holders tripled in the same period. Nearly 6,000 people granted science PhDs annually. An American University, University of Swahili announced recently that they hold a Ph D convocation here in Hyderabad in the third week of June.

It is very interesting to study how Ph. D holders are spread in the world? A study on the countries with the most doctoral graduates revealed that USA tops with 67, 449, Germany with 28, 147, UK 25, 020 and India stands fourth with 24,300 and Japan comes fifth with 16, 039 Ph.Ds.

The total number of PhDs recorded for the last 10 years was 45,561. The number of students who enter at the doctoral education level is abysmally low. It is just 0.25 of the total number who enrolled at the graduate level enroll for the Ph.D. According to the National Institute of Advanced Studies, the women enrolment in Doctoral programs is very low.