MHRD Considers Direct PhD Entry for B.Tech Students to Solve Faculty Crunch

As reported earlier, a dismal teacher-student ratio at Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) and Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) is a concern for their global rankings at the world level. To solve this problem, Ministry of Human Resource and Development is considering an important move.

In the meeting of IIT council next week, MHRD is to propose a new research scholar scheme whereby the ministry will identify exceptionally talented 1000 B.Tech students from premier engineering colleges who have the potential for being enrolled directly into PhD programme. Before the plan is executed, IITs will be asked if it is possible to get bright B.Tech students enrolled for PhD programme immediately after B.Tech.

Besides this, MHRD also to propose that those having B.Tech degree from any of the IITs with job experience and interested in research should be enrolled in PhD course directly. The proposal is directly aimed at solving the faculty crunch in IITs. Even when around 2000 students pass out with PhD degree from IITs every year, the same numbers of vacancies exist.

However, most of the vacancies remain vacant as IITs are very much particular about hiring teachers. Therefore, MHRD is for improving the quality of PhD and attract bright students for research work. To make PhD attractive right after B.Tech, MHRD is to offer hefty scholarships.

Anil Kakodkar Committee report on IITs has already recommended increasing the faculty members to 1200 from around 500 today and approximately 12,000 students with a maximum number of growth coming from the enhanced number of PhD students. The committee has also suggested scaling up the IIT system to 16,000 faculty members and 160,000 strength of students that includes 80,000 students at undergraduate level, 40,000 at master’s level and 40,000 at PhD level by 2020.