Move comes two years after the govt faced massive student protests for not providing any relaxation to reserved category students.
New Delhi: Under attack for what is seen as an anti-Dalit stand, the Narendra Modi government has now allowed a five per cent relaxation for SC/ST students in MPhil and PhD entrance tests.
The move comes two years after the BJP-led central government faced massive student protests for what was termed as “disastrous policy” of not providing any relaxation to reserved category students in entrance tests for research courses.
The UGC finally announced Thursday that for students from the SC/ST category, the qualifying marks in MPhil/Phd entrance exams would be 45, instead of the uniform 50 marks policy for all categories.
The higher education regulator has also done away with the 100 per cent weightage given to interview.
“For any exam in India, reserved category students get some relaxation, which was not the case with MPhil, PhD entrance exams. This is what has been corrected,” said an official from the HRD ministry.
The move is also aimed at increasing the participation of reserved category students in research courses, he added.
In 2016, the higher education regulator had come up with a uniform rule of admission for MPhil and PhD programmes across universities, making entrance exams mandatory for admission.
The rule stipulated that aspirants would have to score at least 50 per cent in the written test to qualify for the interview, on the basis of which the final selection would be done. The rules gave 100 per cent weightage to interview.
Protests against 2016 UGC order
The 2016 order had sparked protests from a section of students who argued that the UGC was going against the law of the land by not providing any relaxation to SC/ST students.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU), which led the protests, argued that uniform 50 per cent qualifying marks for written and the 100 per cent for interview would have led to a near-extinction of the students from the weaker sections in the research courses.
“The UGC decision was a disastrous one, especially for students coming from the reserved category. At that time, we kept raising our demands with the government but no one paid any heed,” said former JNUSU president Mohit Pandey.
“Last year, 70 students belonging to the reserved category could not get admission in MPhil because of the rules. This year also only four students have got admission in Hindi department for MPhil as against 14 seats,” he added.
Faculty reservation
In April this year, the government had decided not to go ahead with the UGC decision that reservations for SC/ST teacher posts would be implemented department wise, rather than institution wise.
The UGC order dated 5 March 2018 sparked a huge controversy with academicians arguing that the representation of teachers from the reserved category will reduce even further if the order is implemented.
Currently, the reservations are calculated on the basis of total faculty posts in a university. The Modi government filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court to withdraw the controversial UGC order.
पढ़ें हिंदी में: दलितों में बढ़ते रोष के मद्देनज़र सरकार ने एससी/एसटी छात्रों को शोध प्रवेश नियमों में दी छूट