AISHE Report 2017-18: Only 3.6% Colleges Offer Ph.D. Programmes

From July 26 to July 28, a Three-Day VCs’ Conference on Research and Innovation in Higher Education was held in Delhi. A 10-point resolution was adopted towards the end of the conference, of which, one point was to “Enhance research productivity of our respective institutions by orienting teachers and students to participate in competition-based research funding schemes.” On the last day of the conference, the 2017-18 report of the All India Survey Higher Education (AISHE) was released by the Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) Prakash Javadekar.

Since the government seems to be displaying so much interest in improving research, some key findings regarding the state of research (Ph.D.) in India, contained in the AISHE report of 2017-18, need to be looked at.

Out of the total enrolment of 3,66,42,378 (3.6 crore) students, 79.19 per cent students are enrolled in under-Graduation, 11.23 per cent students are enrolled in post-graduation. There are 1,61,412 students enrolled at Ph.D. level (excluding 3,110 students enrolled in integrated Ph.D.) i.e. less than 0.5 per cent. Over 57 per cent of all these students are male and 42.6 per cent are female. Enrolment in Ph.D. has gradually increased from 1,07,890 in 2013-14 to 1,61,412 in 2017-18.

As reportedearlier, more than 78 per cent colleges are running in the private sector; aided and unaided taken together. Whereas, only 22 per cent are government colleges. The percentage share of colleges running Ph.D. programmes is only 3.6 per cent! If the government wants to give a fillip to the research capabilities of our country, they must radically increase the number of institutions offering Ph.D. to students of the country, as a necessary first step.

Therefore, the share of Ph.D. students is highest in state public universities (31.6 per cent) followed by institutes of national importance (20.4 per cent), central university (15.8 per cent), and deemed universities-private (13.4 per cent).

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If we present the Ph.D. enrolment under the two broad categories of government-funded universities and private universities, as shown in the table below, we find that 80 per cent of the Ph.D. students in the country are studying in government-funded universities, whereas just 20 per cent are pursuing their Ph.D. in private universities.

The main reason behind this huge disparity is the exponentially high fees charged by the private universities, in comparison to that charged by government-funded universities. Wher universities like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and University of Delhi (DU) charge less than Rs. 1,000 as academic fees annually (excluding a nominal registration fee), students in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are charged more than Rs. 50,000 per year (including hostel and miscellaneous fees); private universities charge anywhere from Rs. 40,000 to Rs 1,00,000 per year (excluding hostel); additionally, they also charge very high registration fees (Rs. 10,000-15,000), dissertation submission/assessment fees (Rs. 10,000-20,000) and other miscellaneous fees.

Therefore, we can clearly see that in universities like JNU and DU, which have fought for an inclusive fee structure for years, the fees for the whole five-year Ph.D. programme is less than even the registration fees charged by private universities. Moreover, in IITs, which are widely known to be following the footsteps of private universities, the fees are very high as compared to the previous category of universities. Finally, we see that private universities are the most expensive and exclusive universities, which is why they have less number of students enrolled in Ph.D. programmes as compared to the government-funded universities.

According to the 2017-18 report, only 34,400 students were awarded Ph.D. degrees during 2017 with 20,179 males and 14,221 females. Likewise, 28,779 students were awarded Ph.D. degrees during 2016.