India Dumps DL PhD Programs

[Don Dresden]

Shapes of things to come for certain US DL PhD programs?

No PhD, MPhil at open universities, says UGC

Kaustubh Kulkarni / Pune August 10, 2009, 0:44 IST

...Pointing out the declining quality of research projects in a "distance learning" system, UGC has stopped registration for PhD and MPhil programmes at all the 14 open universities, including the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

This has sparked angry reactions from academics and students attached to open universities who believe the "declining quality of research" is a national concern and not confined to open universities.

Three years back, UGC had announced that degrees like MPhil and PhD would be considered as an option to the National Eligibility Test (NET) or State Eligibility Test (SET) for recruitment of full-time teachers at colleges. After this announcement, thousands of students registered for MPhil and PhD programmes at open universities. So it has come as a surprise that UGC has not only revoked this decision but also banned research projects at open universities. A notice to this effect has been put up on UGC"s website.

Speaking to Business Standard over the phone from New Delhi, a top UGC official said: "We expect research projects to be taken very seriously and that seems difficult in a distance learning system. A research fellow needs to be in regular touch with the guide and library and therefore we have decided that open universities cannot conduct MPhil and PhD programmes. Open universities allow research in arts, commerce and management streams and not in science. Over the years, we have observed a continuous decline in the quality of research projects at these universities."...

[ham]

In my modest experience it all has to do with poor supervision first, and with incompetent applicants second. Not everybody is suited for postgraduate research and that's problem n.1. The biggest problem, though, is poor supervision.
I can safely say in ALL my research at both B&M and online universities I have been left virtually alone.
The concept of supervision must also be questioned.
No doubt most supervisors respect 'learning contracts', but the actual amount of supervision and the stipulations of these contracts are often very generic in their demands and call for limited actions (EX a comment of n to m words length on say a x to y page range ).
At the beginning of the term, one would usually get a distress form letter from the supervisor informing how s-he had to teach to/supervise so many students, and therefore to expect time for each to be limited accordingly.
Of course the individual supervisor makes the difference, but I found that most are unwilling to go the extra mile and content themselves with meeting the minimum requirements in order not to be investigated.