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DU approves direct PhD admission for four-year undergraduate programme students, but with riders
One-year postgraduate programmes in five subjects at DU’s SOL were also approved, with UGC clearance for the same having been obtained as well.
The University of Delhi (DU) on Thursday approved direct admissions to its PhD programmes for students who have completed a four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) under the Undergraduate Curriculum Framework (UGCF) 2022.
The decision was taken during the DU’s executive council (EC) meeting. A council member clarified that students must meet certain criteria to be eligible for direct admission to the PhD programme. “This route is only available to students who have completed a four-year UG programme, have an overall CGPA over 7.5, and have published their research project on any SCOPUS (citation databases for peer-reviewed literature journals),” said executive council member Aman Kumar.
“If a student meets these criteria, they will automatically be eligible to pursue a PhD under the supervision of the same professor who guided them in their UG dissertation,” said Kumar.
However, Kumar flagged that the proposal was not very well thought out and could cause difficulties for students.
“There is no clear policy yet on whether students will carry out their PhD under the college they studied in or under the department of their subject. Additionally, students who go through this route will now not be able to give the NET exam since a postgraduate degree is required for it,” Kumar said, who submitted a letter of dissent to the council.
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Mithuraaj Dhusiya, another EC member who opposed the proposal, said that admitting students to PhD programmes without any interview or entrance test would mean that there is no credible method to ensure that the student’s research would be academically viable and valid according to the PhD standards.
The letter by those opposed to the proposal, seen by HT, states that PhD topics “can be identified only after doing advanced studies in a subject and not after graduation.”
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The letter also expresses concerns that the decision may hinder students’ academic growth by creating a “misleading illusion of academic competence” and diluting the value of other postgraduate programmes. It also mentions that the University Grants Commission notifies, from time to time, the minimum standards and procedures required for the award of a PhD degree and advises DU to wait for the same.
However, DU registrar Vikas Gupta, praising the decision, said, “The proposal was approved by the Executive Council with immediate effect and will be implemented from the 2026–27 academic session. The decision has been taken in alignment with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 to strengthen research-oriented learning and promote continuity in academic research. DU will be the first university in India to allow direct admissions to PhD after UG in the social sciences and arts field,” Gupta said.
He also clarified that, for now, only students who have completed a FYUP from Delhi are eligible for direct admission, and that students who have completed the same at other universities or foreign universities are not eligible.
In other decisions, EC approved a “semester away program” for DU’s UG programmes, in collaboration with foreign higher education institutions under the UGCF-2022. Kumar said that students would be able to apply for the program in their third and sixth semesters.
One-year postgraduate programmes in five subjects at DU’s School of Open Learning (SOL) were also approved, with UGC clearance for the same having been obtained as well. The SOL will offer 575 seats for M.Com., 500 for M.A. Political Science, 200 for M.A. Hindi, 150 for M.A. History, and 75 for M.A. Sanskrit.
The EC also approved the committee’s recommendation to make ad-hoc teachers appointed through due process eligible for pay protection. “Under these recommendations, requests for pay protection will be considered for teachers appointed on a regular basis in various colleges/universities who had previously served in temporary positions, provided their earlier appointments were made through due process and prescribed rules,” read a statement issued by DU regarding the EC meeting.
The EC also approved a “Group Insurance Scheme” to provide social security benefits to dependents of DU employees, including contractual staff.
“A coverage of ₹20 lakh will be provided via a master policy, for which each subscriber will be required to pay a monthly premium of ₹500 plus GST. Participation in this scheme is voluntary for employees,” the statement added.
