Staff shortage makes University of Hyderabad slash courses

Hyderabad: The University of Hyderabad, which was recently ranked fourth in the MHRD national rankings, has had to cut down its PhD and M.Phil. courses on offer this year due to faculty shortage.

The university has curtailed four M.Phil. and PhD courses each this year.
The M.Phil. courses that have been chopped are Telugu, Applied Linguistics, Translation Studies and Cognitive Science, while the PhD courses are Science and Technology and Society Studies — which Rohith Vemula, the Dalit research scholar who committed suicide in January, was pursuing his PhD in — Advanced Centre of Research in High Energy Materials (ACRHEM), Gender Studies and Endangered Language Studies.

The severity of lack of faculty can be gauged from the fact that in Gender Studies, three faculty members are guiding 38 M.Phil. and PhD scholars whereas Science and Technology and Society Studies has just one faculty, that too in-charge. Apart from this, admissions will not be conducted for integrated M.Phil. and PhD in Cognitive Science and advanced PG diploma and M.Tech in Mineral Exploration this year.

The UoH Students Union is meanwhile unhappy with the situation. In a representation to the university, it complained that nearly 100 seats had been lost this year due to curtailing of courses.

Mr Devesh Nigam, who was recently appointed in-charge controller of examinations, said, “We have not discontinued the courses. There is a shortage of faculty eligible for guiding PhD scholars in some departments. Once the required number of staff is recruited, the courses will be continued.

The collaboration with DRDO will be ending in two years and we do not know if it will be renewed, so we did not conduct PhD admissions for ACRHEM. There has not been much demand for the course in Mineral Exploration too.”