Chandigarh, December 26: A Panjab University (PU) panel on Wednesday decided to relax rules for admission to PhD in engineering as anyone who has qualified Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) can pursue research in the subject.
Earlier, a minimum score of 350 was required for general category and 300 for reserved category.
“Even IITs and NITs take qualifying GATE score. But at PU, we had a fixed score. A lot of students were not eligible for PhD at PU. They were taking admissions in the nearby universities. Our research was getting affected,” said assistant prof Praveen Goyal, senator and member of panel on PhD regulations.
He said the decision would benefit the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET), the University Institute of Chemical Engineering and Technology (UICET) and Hoshairpur’s UIET.
He reasoned that qualifying GATE score was anyway around 350. “This wouldn’t mean that we are ready to take poor students. We can filter students through interview,” he said.
The PU had once issued a circular dated June 29, 2017, where citing the 2016 UGC minimum standard for award of PhD guidelines, a minimum GATE score of 600 was fixed. However, it was later revised to 500. The UIET Director wrote to the PU authorities in August 2017 that: “The UIET is a young and upcoming institute and having criteria of 500 GATE score will not attract students. Moreover, in national-level institutes, such as IIT, NIT, IISER, only valid GATE score is required.”
Students had also pointed out that the UGC guidelines, which were quoted for fixing the minimum score, had only mentioned about GATE qualification without any mention of marks. After that it was brought down to 350 and on Wednesday, it was decided to restrict it to qualifying GATE score only.
Thesis could be submitted with acceptance of paper
- The PU panel has also decided that a PhD thesis could be submitted even if a paper in a journal is accepted. Earlier, the condition was that PhD scholars must publish at least one research paper in refereed journal and make two paper presentations in conferences or seminars before submission of thesis and produce evidence for the same.
- It was argued on Wednesday that sometimes a journal took up to six months in publishing a paper after accepting it. “One can submit his thesis and a viva can take place. But the PhD will be awarded only when the paper is published,” Dr Praveen Goyal said.
