Minimum marks in entrance exam is set by AU, Chennai for the PhD interviews
Posted on: 31/Oct/2018 9:25:32 AM
The latest news is minimum marks has been introduced in the entrance test by the Anna University or AU for the PhD scholars to qualify for the interview. The main purpose of this is to improve the quality of research scholars entering into the various departments of the university and engineering colleges. It is now said that as per the new regulations a candidate has to score 40 marks out of total 100 marks in the entrance test and need to be selected by the interview committee to be enrolled as a research scholar. It is worthy to mention that at present there are around 13000 PhD scholars who are pursuing research at Anna University plus in other affiliated colleges of Anna University.
The entrance test has been in the process for several years but no minimum marks were prescribed by the university till now. One important point is guides usually prefer certain candidates and these candidates enrol themselves as research scholar. This has resulted in the research standards becoming low. The new regulations would bring down the enrolment of research scholars into the engineering institutions and this was confirmed by few professors.
President, Anna University teachers Association, Mr. Arul Aram expressed his opinion and said the quality of education would increase definitely now. He then added that for a quality PhD certain level of prerequisite knowledge from a PhD candidate is important. He explained how mediocre input would lead only to mediocre output and how there is no point in producing mediocre PhDs.
The sensational piece of news is there would be no more MS (Research) programmes as the university has done away with this programme that was there for many years. There would not be any candidates admitted in this above programme when the existing students finish their degrees. It was revealed by the professors that MS (Research) programme does not have any job prospects as it was not recognised equivalent to M. Tech or M.E programmes.
Vice-chancellor of Anna University, professor Surappa, spoke about how minimum standards have been brought now for the research scholars and how the scholars have to pass the entrance exam and appear for an interview. He further added that interview committee would select the candidates.
As many as 2000 candidates wrote the entrance test recently and those candidates who have qualified would be called for an interview that would begin from 3rd of November 2018. This move would bring down the number of research scholars in 4 campuses of Anna University. When questioned about whether it would affect the university’s rankings, professor Surappa replied that it would not affect as it is linked with the quality of research and the number of citations. He added that Anna University has already got large number of research scholars and quality would be reduced if more research scholars are present. Few professors were of the view that AU does not have the same infrastructures of IITs. The vice-chancellor of AU professor Surappa spoke about the need to build adequate infrastructure for the sake of high quality research activities.
