Foreign students perturb over Ph D course work fees hike

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The international students pursuing PhD within departments and affiliated research centres of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (Bamu) are upset over the hike of the registration fee for the Pre-Ph D course work.

It may be noted that as per the norms of the University Grants Commission (UGC), each registered Ph D will have to complete the course work before commencement of research. Each university holds the coursework on the basis of the researchers' strenght. The final thesis of Pre-Ph D viva is not held without the submission of the coursework certification. There were more than 4,000 Ph D researchers registered last year.

The university used to charge slightly higher fees for the registration of foreign students compared to local students. The office of the Board of Examination and Evaluation (BoEE) started course registration last week. It last date for online registration on the university portal is January 11.

The international students who did not want to be identified said that this year the fees are being charged five times to international students compared to Indian students."A local student will pay Rs 3,000 while for a foreign student, it is Rs 15,000," they said. Some of them are facing financial crunch because of a conflic in their country.When contacted the director of the Foreign Students Cell Dr Vikas Kumar was not available for comment.Box

Course to be held online

The university announced that the coursework will be conducted online through the UGC-Malaviya Mission-Teachers Training Centre (MM-TTC).

Box

Structure of course

As per the ordinance of the university and in light of the guidelines of the UGC (Minimum Standard and Procedure for award PhD Degree) Regulation, the course work is designed. It will be based on two papers (Paper I and Paper II). The first paper will be based on Research Methodology while the last on the area of the researcher's subject.

Box

Objectives of coursework

Following are the objectives of the Pre-Ph D coursework

--To endow the student with adequate knowledge to understand research.

--To equip research scholars with research methodology, advanced statistics and research integrity

and ethics

--To motivate research scholars to make original and significant contributions to the scientific

knowledge based on their area of research

--To create awareness about productive research careers including publications and project grants.

--To create a deep understanding of the research topic.