Kolkata: Teachers who have PhDs at CU-affiliated colleges can serve as PhD supervisors, following the recent change in the PhD regulations framed by University of Calcutta (CU). College principals have welcomed this decision as they feel it will help scholars reduce waiting time to get supervisors from the university.
VC Asutosh Ghosh said, “We have excellent professors across affiliated colleges who could be assigned as guides. This could reduce the heavy workload on university professors, and scholars would not have to wait long for guides.”
Under the new regulations, colleges with the required infrastructure and at least two teachers with PhD degrees will be eligible to offer honours programmes with research degrees. In such cases, the university will allow these colleges to run PhD programmes, with eligible teachers serving as PhD guides.
Colleges must apply to the subject-specific PhD committees for final approval. The university will decide how many colleges receive approval based on their infrastructure.
The move is to support the growing interest among UG colleges in developing research facilities, which will also help them conduct the final year of the four-year degree programme that focuses on research.
A university official said, “This will help the university reduce the huge pressure of PhD programmes pending due to an inadequate number of PhD guides. At the same time, affiliated colleges will be encouraged to develop research infrastructure.”
Earlier, only university professors were permitted to supervise PhD students. Although recent UGC guidelines allow college teachers to supervise PhD students, the change could not be implemented at CU, which has 169 affiliated UG colleges, because the university was functioning without a permanent VC.
The change was a long-standing demand from college principals, who argued that if colleges can run PG programmes, they should also be trusted to run PhD programmes, especially as the NEP 2020 places emphasis on research during the final semester at the college level.
Asutosh College principal Manas Kabi said, “We raised this issue several times with the university. There are many colleges under University of Calcutta that have the required infrastructure and excellent teachers who can supervise PhD scholars.”
