For the Ranchi University (RU) teachers mentoring research scholars as guides, life is struggle for existence. They are facing obstacles in imparting standard quality of research information to their students. On the other hand, the scholars who are either pursuing or have completed their Doctorate (PhD) relate these problems as a major drawback from the university’s side.
Presently, the University provides PhD in faculties of Science, Humanities, Social Science and Commerce. Unfortunately, in most of the departments under these faculties there are hardly any adequate space devoted for research scholars, continuous internet facilities and reference in libraries.
“Majority of teachers including the guides have not received their salaries for past three months. Departments like ours do not have sufficient grants to support research works. laboratories in Botany and Zoology are not established. In such scenario, it is becoming difficult for us to supervise scholars as well as post-graduate students,” RU Faculty of Science Dean Ramesh Kumar Pandey said on Sunday.
Similarly, University’s Faculty of Humanities Dean Saraswati Mishra said, “Rarely teachers have got their papers published in standard publications or journals. So, we cannot expect good guides. Scholars fail to get books from the libraries due to manpower crunch in all the university and college departments. The unavailability of Wi-Fi connection in every department makes it hard for us to explain the online references to the research scholars.”
According to University Grants Commission (UGC) norms, a Professor, Associate Professor and Assistant Professor can register 18, 14 and 10 research scholars under them. Referring this data, other university sources pointed on the lack of basic information on Research Methodology among the enrolled scholars.
“It is usually found that the scholars eligible for pursuing doctorate lack knowledge on the basics of carrying out a research work termed as Research Methodology. So, the teacher playing the role of guide has to first explain minute details of this methodology and then proceed on the research work. Also, the Thesis of former PhD holders of RU is rarely uploaded on internet sites due to which it becomes difficult for a scholar to relate previous research works if he or she is working on a similar topic,” sources said.
According to RU administration, presently there are around 2000 Guides including Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors mentoring about 6000 scholars for Doctorate in various topics. Besides the University Faculty this list comprises teachers and scholars of 15 constituent colleges, four minority colleges and five permanently affiliated colleges.
Citing these genuine problems as misfortune of PhD scholars to grab a teaching position in a reputed university of India, an official was noticed suggesting his post graduate student to apply in Ph D entrance examinations of universities like Jawaharlal Nehru University or University of Delhi since the RU PhD recognition is not upto the mark.
Speaking more about this issue, a freelance journalist who is a Doctorate in Political Science from this university said, “Finding good research materials for reference was always a problem. Since it was important for me to gain a doctorate degree so I never opposed.”
