ISLAMABAD-The Higher Education Commission in order to contain the growing number of PhD scholars stressed upon the institutions to strictly follow the its guideline while admitting students in research and doctoral programmes. 

The HEC issued a letter to all higher education institutions to not ‘violate’ rules in award of PhD degrees to scholars. The commission directed all HEIs to follow the policy to stop awarding degrees in violation of the rules.

The letter also instructed the HEIs that only HEC-approved supervisors should be assigned the PhD thesis after June 2019.

The letter issued said that it was apprised that HEC had prescribed minimum criteria for admission in MS/MPhil and PhD or equivalent programmes.

The letter available with The Nation said, “Despite of these guidelines, it has been observed that some universities are awarding PhD degrees in violation of HEC prescribed rules. This creates problem for the degree holders at the time of verification. Therefore, a policy to stop the award of degrees in violation of rules has been approved by the HEC competent authority. All universities are hereby advised to adopt this policy and widely circulate among the concerned offices, PhD departments, faculty and students for information/implementation.”

It intimated that only HEC-approved supervisors shall be required to supervise the PhD thesis in future. However, non-approved supervisors, currently assigned the PhD thesis might continue supervising the students. But no thesis will be assigned to HEC non-approved supervisor after June 30, 2019.

The HEC directed that a candidate should have minimum CGPA of 3 (out of 4 in the semester system) or first division in the annual system in MPhil/MS/equivalent degree is required.

The students of PhD admitted till May 30, 2014 have to follow the policy including passing of NTS, ETS in the area of specialised field and minimum passing marks in case of GAT should be 60 percent.

If the test is not available in NTS subject list, a university committee consisting of at least 3 PhD faculty members in the subject area will prepare the test as par with GRE subject test and qualifying score for this will be 70 percent, it directed.

Students admitted in PhD programmes after August 25, 2010 have to submit the requisite GAT subject or GRE subject score within a period of one year, it directed.

The course work of 18 credit hours preferably in the first year is required to be completed and followed by a comprehensive examination for granting candidacy as PhD researcher.

The PhD defence must be evaluated by at least two PhD experts from technologically/academically advance foreign countries in addition to local committee members.

Publication of at least on research paper based on the PhD research in an HEC approved ‘W’ ‘X’ or ‘Y’ category journal is requirement for the award of PhD degree.

The plagiarism test must be conducted in dissertation before its submission to the two foreign experts.

There should be at least 3 relevant fulltime PhD faculty members to launch a PhD programme and a supervisor can supervise a total of 12 MS/MPhil/PhD students at a time with no more than 5 of these being PhD students.

Meanwhile, for MS/MPhil programmes, 16 years of schooling or 4 years of education after HSSC/FA/FSc/grade 12 equivalent will be required for admission in the MPhil/MS.

The HEC recommended to the universities for the students admitted after May 30, 2014 that either enter into private arrangement under the university law with the NTS for conducting GAT General/Subject as an eligibility for admission to MS/MPhil or equivalent programmes or engage another renowned testing service provider for the purpose or conduct the test of the equivalent level at university.

The students admitted till May 30, 2014 will have to clear GAT-General conducted by the NTS with a minimum 50% cumulative score for admission in MPhil/MS or equivalent.

It also said that for award of MPhil/MS/Equivalent degree, candidates will either need to complete 30 credit hours of course work or complete 24 credit hours of the course work along with a minimum of 6 credit hours for research work/thesis.

It stated that there should be at least two relevant full time PhD faculty members in a department to launch the MPhil/MS/MBA programmes.