The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry on July 30th announced the New Education Policy (NEP), under which the two-year MPhil program will be ceased. According to this policy, there will be significant changes in the degree of higher education by the central government which also includes cancellation of the MPhil program. The base qualification for a Ph.D. will either be a four-year program with research, or a Master’s degree.
Academicians, researcher scholars, and students in several universities have raised worries over the cease of MPhil program under the New Education Policy (NEP), saying that it won’t just influence the nature of examination at the Ph.D. level yet additionally deny a critical number of Dalit understudies to get research and thus de-motivate them.
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What Academicians Say:
Academicians said that MPhil offers a space for those intrigued by the quick research experience and don’t want to put vitality in the Ph.D. Bangya Bhukya, a professor and head at University of Hyderabad’s Department of History, said that “MPhil program prepares and introduces students to research and particularly help students to master the research skills and tools. It also helps those students who want to do a shorter research study, as the Ph.D. program involves longer periods of time, which can also extend up to five years. It is now unfortunately scuttled under the so-called New National Education Policy”, he said.
Rekha Pande, the Director of SEED (Society for Empowerment through Environment Development), the former Director of the Centre for Women’s Studies and a Professor of History at the University of Hyderabad. She is also internationally known for her published researches on gender issues. She stated that MPhil was a short-term plan for research that can go up to one and a half years or two years at the most. It was within this short span that students would decide whether they are truly inspired by research or not. Research requires a certain bent of mind that is curious, scientific in temperament, also where the student is willing to pursue his or her interests, to learn something new, to hone the problem-solving skills and to challenge oneself in new ways. This was generally considered to be an excellent course of action for a student to get an understanding of their abilities and interests. In case the course did not intrigue them during these two years they would have an option to leave and proceed to join something different.
With a new policy that brings expulsion to MPhil, it will be exceptionally hard for a student to know whether they really have an aptitude for research or not. Now a student is bound to take admission in the Ph.D. program for a longer period of time without knowing if their enthusiasm and bent of mind for research are directional in a good way or not. The new policy brings them to no stop-gap arrangement which ends the chance to evaluate the student. In such a scenario both the teacher and the students are stuck in this arrangement in which they no longer are sure if they can get good quality research or not. She also said, “I imagined that MPhil was acceptable in light of the fact that a considerable lot of the students joined MPhil and if they felt it was excessively intense or that couldn’t do it, they left, went and search for something different. Now there is no choice. Master’s is too short a programme and it does not necessarily hone your skills of research and one needs more time for knowing one’s research abilities.”
A few academicians said that the MPhil was especially helpful for those students who didn’t have any preparation in research at the PG level. V. J. Varghese, an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Hyderabad, said, “MPhil bridges the Masters and the doctoral studies, and many often allow students to decide if they really want to get into a Ph.D. or not. We have to see how it is going to be implemented. If scrapping of MPhil is compensated by an equal number of additional seats at the Ph.D. level, it may not have consequences on the underprivileged perse. But if the seats of Ph.D. remains the same, the acute competition can particularly adversely affect the underprivileged categories – social, economic and regional!”, he said.
A few academicians are expressing their choice about MPhil, assuming it as a pitiful job in improving the research capacities of a student. “I am completely in favor of the decision”, said Ms. Tsering Yangzom, an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Jammu. She further added that once MPhil was very significant but now the changing global factors especially pertaining to the education system and career opportunities, MPhil is losing its credibility.
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What Research Scholars Say:
Some research scholars said that the move is an assault on the marginalized communities who come from regional backgrounds. “The move is a process of filtration of marginalized communities who aspire for higher educational institutions”, said Gopi Swamy, a Ph.D. research scholar and general secretary of the student union (2019-20) at University of Hyderabad. He also said that if you look at the whole composition of NEP from the Ambedkarite perspective, it is like non-inclusive education policy, as it makes education a mere market commodity. Gopi Swamy, who is also an ASA (Ambedkar Students’ Association) convener, said that making regional languages obligatory and mainstreaming Sanskrit is the greatest trouble for marginalized communities.
“With no more MPhil program, more than a thousand seats will be chopped down and it will, at last, be a deprivation of education for the marginalized communities”, he said.
A few research scholars who are pursuing MPhil and Ph.D. said that it is a tyrant move and an un-institutional strategy to smother the difference by diminishing the subsidizing for research in India.
Aakriti Suresh, a final-year MPhil scholar at the University of Hyderabad, said that “Students are the biggest stakeholders in the educational process and none of the student organizations other than ABVP were even given a chance to participate in the policy change and decision-making process. Even though the policy claims that the MA and BA courses will be made more research-oriented, there’s no clarification as to how that’ll happen and what will be the duration of the MA course as well. They have once again decided to use the students as guinea pigs and experiment bizarre ideas on them, which will only lead to more plagiarized dissertations and no room for fresh, independent research.”
Another final-year MPhil scholar requesting anonymity said that “By removing MPhil, the government has indicated its stance in the reduction of funds and support to researchers in India. Also, the degree offers social sciences and humanities, while as the government as fascist as the current one is, they can never benefit from scholars who question it’s every whim and fancy. So, it is also an institutional method of suppressing the dissent.”
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What Students Say:
There many students who are totally confused with respect to what they will do and now they are raising their concerns that the move might be debilitated buoyant of numerous scholars.
“With the current situation in mind, I am completely clueless as to what I’m going to do, at least for the next year if MPhil is scrapped immediately”, said Nirupama, a resident of Chennai and a final year PG student at University of Hyderabad’s Centre for Comparative Literature.
She also said that she thinks it is an unwise move because a lot of master’s programs don’t offer research projects, so there is practically no training to do a Ph.D. MPhil is a course where you can build a solid foundation for research. She also feels that a Ph.D. will become a tougher option and might discourage many hopeful scholars.
Numerous students from the persecuted communities are stating that the move will limit their chances and which will eventually deny Dalit students to access resources.
Prajwal Gaikwad, a resident of Nashik and an MA student at the University of Hyderabad, said that “Our greatest trouble lies in availing of the resources. Unlike the upper castes of this country, who have generations of access to education and are holding those privileges to themselves, we are hardly even first or second-generation learners who are often clueless in the universities where they reach the enormous struggle.”
Adding to his statement he said MPhil was an opportunity for us to avail of the resources and learn the skills. The majority of Dalit students chose to do MPhil over a direct Ph.D. for this reason. Direct PhDs are hardly allotted to Dalit students, as they choose to keep the seat vacant, but not allow a Dalit student to fill it. Cancellation of MPhil is deprivation of Dalit student’s access to resources, understanding of research, and hence de-motivating them to peruse Ph.D. when they have no reservations there.
An anonymous university student said, “It was a preparatory phase to enter the research domain. Removal of MPhil will cause a great degree of inconvenience for students who are pursuing their masters or just got done with their Masters”
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