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Coimbatore: Academicians and students are up in arms against the University Grants Commission’s decision to mandate clearing of National Eligibility Test (NET) to get scholarship under the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) for minority students from the academic year 2018-19.
“Until recently, NET was mandatory only to become a teaching faculty in colleges and universities and it was to ensure that only qualified staff enter the higher educational institutions. This is the first time, UGC has mandated NET to avail scholarship, meant for minorities,” said a 27-year-old research scholar from the city.
Candidates belonging to minority communities, including Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Buddhist, who have enrolled for full time MPhill or PhD programmes in Indian Universities, institutions and colleges with UGC NET or CIST NET could apply for the fellowship, said the UGC notification which was released recently. The last date to apply for fellowship is December 31.
The notification comes days after students criticized its initial notification which stated that only those students who had cleared NET held in December 2017 and June 2018 were eligible to apply for fellowship.
Most of the times, students especially women, come forward to do doctoral programmes mainly because of the fellowships as it would make them financially independent, the scholar said, adding that the move is going to be a big blow to students.
The students who are from economically poor background and are completely dependent on fellowships to pursue further, could no longer opt for doctoral programmes as nobody would be willing to spend a year to crack NET, she said.
Just like NEET coaching classes, NET coaching classes might also come up in the cities, he added. “It is definitely going to be a setback for the students from marginalized section. It is not the appropriate time to mandate NET as the ministry of human resource and development (MHRD) had made PhD compulsory for the teaching faculties from 2021,” former general secretary of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) C Pichandy said.
If the commission wants to ensure that only qualified people complete PhD, then they should standardize PhD programmes, he added.
“It is not just with MANF, the central government has mandated NET even to avail Rajiv Gandhi National fellowship for scheduled caste. The move would exclude many students belonging to minority groups and dalits from getting the scholarships. It reflects the fundamental attitude of the BJP,” national general secretary of Student Federation of India (SFI) Mayukh Biswas said.
It’s very disturbing to know how the scholarship for minorities and dalits had been put under such special conditioning when their representation is in meagre numbers in higher education, he said, adding that the government should be creating more opportunities for the deprived communities. Thank you
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/coimbatore/ugcs-decision-to-mandate-net-for-fellowship-opposed/articleshow/67279596.cms