Various students’ organisations and academics have decried a decision by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to make the National Eligibility Test (NET) the single examination for admission to PhD courses.

They said the decision of India’s higher education regulator would be detrimental to academic diversity and strip higher educational institutions of their autonomy to select candidates for research programmes.

At present, each university holds its entrance test and viva voce to select candidates for PhD. The UGC holds the NET for selecting eligible candidates as assistant professors in colleges and universities. Top NET scorers are eligible for Junior Research Fellowships and do not need to appear in the PhD entrance test of any university. They can enrol as PhD students after an interview.

Last week, the UGC wrote to the vice-chancellors of all universities, requesting them to discontinue their entrance tests and consider NET as the single national entrance.

“The HEIs (higher educational institutions) are requested to utilise the NET score for admission to PhD programmes instead of conducting their entrance tests from the forthcoming academic session 2024-25,” said the letter by UGC secretary Manish Joshi.

The UGC has issued a public notice too, saying the commission in its meeting on March 13 approved a proposal in this regard. The notice said a single entrance test, instead of multiple ones, would help students.

According to the UGC decision, the NET candidates will be declared eligible in three categories. The top scorers in category 1 will be eligible for admission to PhD with JRF and appointed as assistant professors. Those in category 2 will be eligible for admission to PhD without JRF and appointed as assistant professors. Those in category 3 can only be admitted to the PhD programme, but not as JRFs or assistant professors.

The results of NET will be declared in percentile along with the marks obtained by a candidate. Students figuring in categories 2 and 3 will get 70 per cent weightage for NET scores and 30 per cent weightage for the interview (viva voce). The PhD admission will be based on the combined merit of NET and interview marks.

A retired faculty member of JNU said this decision would prove disastrous for universities.

“This decision takes away the university’s autonomy completely. Each university has its own strength. It designs its own entrance test to select students according to its requirement. A standard entrance can’t serve the specific requirement of each university,” he said.

Former UGC secretary R.K. Chauhan predicted that universities in remote, hilly and border areas would hardly get PhD students under this centralised system.

The All-India Students Association (AISA) said this step by UGC treats two different exams, NET and PhD entrances, meant for two different purposes, as one and the same.

It stated that so far, after securing PhD admission, students would continue to prepare for NET and subsequently clear it, but this new rule would hamper this process. “It will reduce the enrollment in public-funded institutions and limit students from pursuing research,” the AISA statement added.

The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) said the validity of the certificate of qualifying NET was reduced to one year from two years. This will rob many applicants of the opportunity to apply for PhD across the country and force aspiring researchers to slash time from working on their research proposals to focus more on cracking the entrance test like a machine.

The All-India Students’ Federation also expressed its displeasure. “By making MCQ-based NET exam mandatory, the government is trying to turn PhD into a rat race and promote coaching centre culture,” it said.