India may phase out M.Phil degree, allow Ph.D
after four-year graduation course
India may phase out M.Phil degrees from
academic institutions and allow students to pursue a doctorate programme after
a four-year graduation course.
“The M.Phil programme shall be discontinued,”
says the final draft of the new education policy prepared by the human resource
development (HRD) ministry.
“Undertaking a Ph.D shall require either a
master’s degree or a four-year bachelor’s degree with research,” the draft
says. Mint has seen a copy of the final draft, which will soon go to the
cabinet for approval.
This comes with M.Phil, an advanced master’s
degree, gradually losing popularity and the government seeking to introduce a
research component in graduation and restructure some of the higher education
courses. The final draft of the new policy, which seeks to replace the one that
has been in place for almost 30 years, underlines that the structure and length
of degrees in colleges and universities may be adjusted.
The undergraduate degree will be of either
three or four-year duration. According to the final draft, higher educational
institutions may offer multiple exit options within this period, with
appropriate certifications. For example, an advanced diploma in a discipline or
field, including in vocational and professional areas, could be given after
completion of two years of study and a diploma after completion of one year.
“The four-year programme will provide students
the opportunity to experience the full range of liberal arts education. This
will be called the bachelor of liberal arts (BLA) or bachelor of liberal
education (BLE) in the chosen major and minors. Both programmes may lead to a
degree ‘with research’, if the student completes a rigorous research project as
specified by the institution. The three-year programme will lead to a
bachelor’s degree. Higher educational institutions may choose to call their
three-year undergraduate degree a bachelor of arts, or science, or vocational,
or the appropriate professional field,” says the final draft.
“There are two components so far as M.Phil and
Ph.D degrees are concerned. One, M.Phil will most likely go and, second, a research
component will be introduced in the fourth year of graduation and that will
make a student eligible to pursue research. While Ph.D after graduation is not
allowed in universities, IITs have a provision to enrol students in Ph.D after
their four-year bachelor in technology (B.Tech) courses,” said a government
official who did not want to be named.
M.Phil has seen declining enrolment in the
last few years, indicating that it may be losing popularity, said the official.
According to official data, in 2016-17, while 43,267 students took admission in
M.Phil courses, the number declined to 34,109 in 2017-18. In 2018-19, 30,692
students including 19,069 female students enrolled for the M.Phil courses
across the country. Among states, Tamil Nadu had the highest M.Phil enrolment
(12,425), followed by Delhi (5,086), and Maharashtra (2,172). The two states
and one Union territory effectively account for two-thirds of the total
enrolment, according to official data.
India has been working on a new national education
policy for the past five years. A final report by the K. Kasturirangan
Committee on the new education policy was made public on 31 May. The HRD
ministry and its committees have had more than 115,000 meetings and, since
June, have received more than 200,000 public suggestions. The ministry has been
working on the report since June 2019 to prepare the final policy draft, which
will be notified after being cleared by the Union cabinet.
The Indian education system is one of the
largest in the world with nearly 300 million students pursuing education at
more than 1.4 million schools and over 49,000 colleges, as well as more than
900 universities.
Source | Mint | 6th November 2019
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Librarian
Rizvi
Institute of Management
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