MS, MPhil must for PhD admissions:FAPUASA rejects HEC recommendation

Islamabad: Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations (FAPUASA) has rejected the revised PhD admission policy recently recommended to universities in Pakistan by the current administration of Higher Education Commission and vowed to resist such unilateral policies with full zeal.

Earlier, it was mandatory for students to have either an MPhil or equivalent degree or 2-year post-graduate teaching/research experience to apply for PhD admission in any Pakistani university. The HEC had introduced 4-year BS programmes a few years ago in phases, while doing away with the MA/MSc programmes in all public-sector institutions of higher learning and research.

The Commission is in the process of phasing out the MPhil programmes also and had announced to replace with 6-semester MS programme as in vogue in the US and European universities to bring our system at par with the First World and enabling our PhD candidates to apply in the US, Canada etc. without undertaking their graduate programmes first.

Dr Hasan Mahmood, President, Academic Staff Association, Quaid-i-Azam University, talking to The News regretted that HEC suddenly suggested to even scrap the condition of MPhil for PhD admission without replacing it with MS degrees. It should have opted for MPhil/MS option, he said, but the latest recommendation allows the direct admission of BS graduates into PhD admissions in all the disciplines in Pakistani universities.

According to a recent FAPUASA statement, this recommendation is made without taking higher education institutions and academia on-board. The teachers’ representative body said that the direct admission to PhD programme after an undergraduate degree (16-Years) will have great impinging for the post-graduate programmes of the universities in Pakistan.

As per the Federation statement, MPhil programme will become out-rightly redundant, which will be a great loss for the universities of Pakistan. It said that the research productivity will decline considerably since the students after acquiring MPhil degree were well privy to the research requirements and prerequisites.

Masters and MPhil students are trained to undertake quality research work, reflected through their international research publications, said FAPUASA. Based on this experience, they succeed in securing PhD admissions and scholarships in top-ranking world universities.