Hyderabad: Students from Telangana have given up hope of doing PhDs from the Osmania University thanks to the inordinate delay by the university in conducting PhD admissions.
The university had released notification for PhD admissions in July 2014 but the eligibility test was conducted only in January 2015, five months later. A year later the university has still not conducted PhD admissions. In fact, OU has not conducted PhD admissions through eligibility tests since 2013.
While some students are lashing out on social media regarding the university's failure, many are complaining anonymously fearing that they may not be selected if identified.
There are other reasons too for the students to feel disgruntled. The university had released the results of the PhD eligibility test five months after the exam whereas the rules state that it should be declared within 60 days of the test.
Moreover, the departments have a limited number of seats for PhD which are being regularly filled by those who secure national-level fellowships like UGC/CSIR JRF, ICAR and ICMR or are regular M.Phil students from OU.
Some students who qualified in the PhD eligibility test see this as a ploy by the university to fill up seats with M.Phil students from OU who have political backing. Moreover, eligibility test qualification is valid for just one year. Some even left jobs to pursue PhD and are now left in lurch.
After the PhD eligibility test results were released last year in which 6,000 students qualified, there were violent protests by students regarding increased cut off marks for the PhD eligibility test and the criteria of interview, after which admissions were halted.
