NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu has maintained the record of maximum PhD enrolments in India, third year in a row, indicating that most students with science and engineering and technology background are choosing higher studies over immediate job prospects.
All India Survey on Higher Education 2017-18, released by the Union Human Resources Development Ministry, says that out of total 1.62 lakh students enrolled for PhDs in India’s various institutions, 29,778 or about 18.5% are just in one state — Tamil Nadu.
It means that the highest number of students in the state are awarded the degrees too. In, 2016-17, for instance, of all 24,171 students who received their PhD degrees, 3,973 students or 16.32% belonged to Tamil Nadu. Uttar Pradesh stand second with 15,408 enrolments and is followed by Delhi and Karnataka.
AISHE figures reveals that at the PhD level, most students are enrolled in science followed by engineering and technology. In agriculture and allied courses, 21.1% are enrolling after post-graduation followed by engineering and technology courses with 20.07% of the enrolments.
This is followed by science (6.9%) and medical science (4.9%). In Social Sciences on the other hand, just about 2.4% of students are opting for PhD.But what explains the southern states drawing a large pool of students to the highest academic degrees? According to Prof Bhawani, omputer Science and Technology department, Annamalai University, only candidates with PhD are eligible to get into faculty positions, besides the National Teachers Eligibility, in most institutions of higher education, is a driving force. “Also, the state has a high number of technical, particularly engineering institutes, with areas that draw maximum research activities,” she said.
But not everybody agrees to read the numbers superficially. “A lot more students are pursuing PhD could also be because there are not immediate jobs after their graduation. PhDs, at least, offer hope of a steady stipend for a few years,” said Rudrashish Chakraborty of English department at Kirori Mal College in Delhi University. “The number of PhDs awarded at research-based universities such as JNU is coming down and the overall scene does not look nice.”
These many scholars
Total PhD enrolments in the country: 1.62 lakh
Highest enrolments in TN: 29,778
Maximum PhD enrolments in the Science and engineering streams
PhD level has 57.4% male and 42.6% female
Engineering and Technology divided into 19 sub-streams with 38,714 students enrolled for PhD; mechanical engineering has maximum students
Medical Science has total number of 7,086 PhD students
41,844 students enrolled for PhD in science, of which maximum students are in Chemistry