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Nearly every accomplished scientist, researcher, or professor passes through the journey of a PhD student. This high academic pursuit demands not only intellectual but also emotional strength to ensure innovative research in the specialised field. In IITK, over 2000 students are pursuing their PhD across more than 20 diverse disciplines.
The recent incidents of student’s demise on the IITK campus and the following protests stirred various questions about student well-being and their situation on campus. PhD students, comprising one of the largest parts of the student community, spend the maximum amount of time on campus than students in any other program. However, the successful completion of a PhD is not solely dependent on an individual’s determination; it thrives within a nurturing academic environment supported by financial stability and prioritised mental well-being. The institute and its policies are crucial in ensuring the availability of these elements to students.
We at Vox recently undertook an investigative study delving into the challenges of PhD students at IITK, aiming to understand and report the current situation and shed light on the institute’s stance.
Vox floated a survey to the PhD community on 20th July 2023 and received ~200 responses, with many respondents also sharing their anecdotal experiences. The respondents constituted 25.3% females, 74.2% males, and 1 person identifying themself as non-binary.
The respondents varied across a whole range of departments, with the majority being from Civil (15.6%), followed by Electrical (13.1%). The below below provides insight into the batch backgrounds of the respondents.
To further gather the administrative perspective and insights on problems and policies, we discussed these matters with heads of departments, the Chairperson of the Student Postgraduate Committee (SPGC), the Dean, Research and Development (DoRD), and the head of Counselling Services.
We’ve organised the investigation into two parts. This article presents the first part of the investigation, which deals mainly with the challenges within the academic sphere. This will be followed by a second part (Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD) @ IITK – II) dealing with financial constraints and personal-level issues.
The Academic Space
The primary figure in any PhD student’s life is their guide, and their interaction with the students is one of the key determiners of the students’ PhD experience. Furthermore, the role of labs and peers is also critical, along with the institute policies and the support system surrounding it, forming an essential ingredient of the student’s academic pursuits. We asked the students various questions related to these different aspects of the academic space.
PGARC 2020 Implementation
A recent step in addressing the problems of postgraduate students at the IITK campus was the Post-graduate Academic Review Committee (PGARC), 2020-21, whose report has been under implementation since July 2023. Vox also covered the highlights of PGARC 2020-21 in this report. However, a significant revelation was the need for more awareness among respondents about the PGARC implementation, with about 85% of the survey respondents being unaware of it.
Prof. Y.N. Mohapatra, who chaired the panel for drafting PGARC 2020-21, states on its implementation, “So its already a year since we’ve been preparing to implement, most of it is implemented to the extent possible, some of it, of course, is far-reaching and requires lot more infrastructural or legislative work, so that is being taken up.”
Interaction with the PhD guide
Our survey revealed a spectrum of opinions regarding the approachability of academic guides. Asked on a scale from 1-5, 47.4% of the respondents gave their guide a 5-pointer, i.e., as very approachable. This was followed by 21.1% of respondents giving a 4-pointer, 13.4% a 3-pointer, 10.3% a 2-pointer, and the remaining 7.7% a 1-pointer to their guides.
A similar trend was depicted in response to the question about the frequency of meeting the guide. About 18% mentioned they rarely met their guides, with 38% as the highest share corresponding to 3-4 meets a month.
Various professors stressed the importance of students showing proactiveness in contacting their professors as a self-initiative. Prof. J K Bera, HoD Chemistry Department, stated that
“The time/attention given to students varies according to their needs. Students who bring interesting and challenging problems/results tend to receive more access. Students who are lagging should be given extra attention/time . Students should prepare well for the meeting with supervisor to utilise the meeting time more effectively.”
We received concerns from students over the number of students per guide. Some departments, such as the Chemistry department, have a high student-to-guide ratio. However, Prof. Bera commented on this high ratio, “The department does not have a cap on the number of students in each group. Some departments do have such restriction. Labs have different requirements and funding. This is at the discretion of the lab supervisor.”
However, the PGARC 2020 document addresses this issue and states that “Any faculty member who has more than one MoE (Ministry of Education) funded PhD students who are not receiving financial support from the Institute or the PI (Principal Investigator) and have not yet delivered their open seminar, should not be allowed to take a new student funded by MoE. ”
Prof Y N Mohapatra also comments on the issue: “This is a recommendation and must not be taken lightly as it has been passed in the academic senate after a long discussion with student representatives as well. The data of the students will be sent to the department, and then they have to take care.”
While we received several subjective responses about specific mishaps during students’ journeys, the lack of an efficient mechanism to tackle the same was seen. Prof J Ramkumar, the then SPGC Chairperson, mentioned,
“In case of a disagreement between a student and a thesis supervisor, the student can first take it up to the DPGC followed by the SPGC. If it doesn’t get resolved at this stage, they can take it up to the Senate Chairman. Also, the ombudsman (here, a professor who deals with complaints made by students) performs the review independently in parallel with the institute mechanism.“
Changing guide
In some situations, students want to change guides for various reasons, which has been a complex process. Prof J Ramkumar mentioned that now the DPGC can intervene and allow the student to change supervisor.
The issue of students’ request for guide change was discussed with Prof. Bera. It was revealed that such requests do arise and each case is considered, and a decision is taken. The difficulty lies in finding a suitable lab with similar research interests. Also, there exists a potential misuse of this option.
Discrimination
Survey responses showed the limited occurrence of discriminatory acts within the academic sphere at IITK. The major contributors to the present discriminatory acts included favouritism and quid pro quo (a favour granted in return for something) of guides and the incidents of elitism and casual sexism by lab mates.
The following are some of the subjective responses which represent the above responses.
“One of my peers spread misinformation that I copied my research work from him and it’s easy for girls to get everything.”
“There would be discussion on a scholar getting appointed as a faculty merely on the basis of gender (she is a girl isliye usko mil gaya hoga job). Very casually the male colleagues would say ” tum logo ko toh ghar pe contribute bhi nahi karna padta hai, hum par toh pressure hota hai”.”
“My guide provides easy funds and helps in research work to favourite students and I have felt my guide less approachable even after 3 years of working.”
Labs
Various students expressed about the lab situations in their departments.
“In the laboratory, there are particular persons allotted to use equipment and instruments. Others can only use when those persons allow them or whenever they are free, so others have to wait for a week or sometimes a month too. It’s like begging from them not like a feeling of the same lab and same institute.”
“My department does not get adequate funds to buy GPU resources. We are using 8 years old outdated GPUs which are of no use now”
“I’m facing delays in my work due to delays in order of equipment and other items that are needed for my work. There is a crunch in financial support/ research funds from the department.”
A common concern from the students was the need to simplify procedures for equipment procurement, such as removing the need for multiple vendor quotations on large purchases and reducing taxes on overseas equipment.
Prof Tarun Gupta, DoRD, acknowledged these issues and informed us that
“Such policies are from the governmental side, and the students can write to MoE about this. There is little we can do about this from our end.”
Future options
We also looked at the future options for PhD graduates and their current aspirations.
Though the majority of the respondents are optimistic, the highest section, 39% of the respondents, agreed to have limited opportunities. However, around 37% of the respondents were unsure or said it would be difficult to find deserving work.
While PhD students are interested in an industrial employment, academia is their first preference. Regarding career prospects, apart from the key academia and industry, few students also mentioned pursuing entrepreneurship, civil services, think tanks, or science communications.
Different professors also provided varied perspectives on the students’ post-PhD prospects.
Prof Misra mentioned, “PhD program is the most advanced degree program and has certain processes and protocols to follow. Most importantly, the PhD program has inherent uncertainty. Therefore, keeping motivation during PhD program is very important. My personal suggestion would be, before committing to a PhD, make sure that you are genuinely interested in pursuing this path. It is also a good idea to have prior information about the department, potential supervisor(s), research facilities and other available opportunities etc.”
Prof J Ramkumar said, “These days, the only option for PhD scholars is not academia, but corporate is also feasible. I’d advise PhD graduates to explore corporate jobs as well. It is a myth that the Government of India imposes an age limit in academia. For an outstanding work, no academic institute will impose hard conditions.”
Institute Policies
One key component of the new PGARC is mandating DMC (Doctoral Monitoring Committee). Prof Y N Mohapatra believes that DMC is important because it leads the student and the faculty to present how useful the semester has been, regularly checking the student’s progress. However, he was concerned that the system sometimes gets defied by getting signatures without actual physical meetings happening on grounds of logistical constraints. He stressed the importance of an actual physical meeting, and that the system should be followed for the student’s betterment. Also, questioning the neutrality of the constituent professors in the committee, he commented,
“DMC is not a policing system. There can be abuses, but any academic system should have transparency, and the supervisor must choose transparently. Normally, when the supervisor chooses, they choose in a manner such that for that particular research problem, there can be inputs from the other faculty so that the student will understand and appreciate it.”
The issue of delayed degree completion at IITK resonated heavily in the student circles. We at Vox conducted a swift analysis of 236 PhD students who graduated from IITK in 2023 (Official List), revealing that the average program duration was 7.625 years. Only 4% completed the PhD in 5 years.
It is to be noted that an error of -0.5 years is expected due to a mismatch of graduation and convocation timing, and also, the COVID years played a strong role in framing these graduation statistics.
Some students reported delays in the final checking of thesis work from the professor’s end as a reason for degree extension. Conversing with Prof. Bera, he said,
“Often there are complains on the delay in checking of thesis/manuscripts from the professor’s end. Both faculty and students stand to gain by publishing a paper or completing a thesis. I do not see a deliberate attempt to slow down the process. It has a lot of back and forth, and if the first draft is rudimentary, it will naturally take more time.”
On the arguments that stringently time-bounding PhDs will compromise with quality, Prof. Y.N. Mohapatra states,
“In my personal opinion, we haven’t seen that extending the degree has resulted in better quality. Most high-quality PhDs are actually done in time. If it’s extended, then there is trouble and one is trying to find minimum ways of making sure that the PhD is of quality.”
While conversing with the then SPGC chairperson, Prof. J Ramkumar, he mentioned, “The DMC are being appointed and the student progress are closely monitored regularly by the department on their research progress and will be uploaded in the Student Dashboard. The number of mandate courses have been reduced for the comprehensive exam requirements.”
He also mentioned some other recently introduced changes to tackle this problem.
a) We have digitised student-related forms to a large extent to facilitate student administration better.
b) The duration of sending reminders to the external examiners has been reduced from the current 6 weeks to a shorter period. The MS (R) external review is being removed. Keeping the review time into consideration, the number of external examiners is also reduced.
c) Policy of exit with MTech degree for PhD scholars is streamlined, keeping students’ interest in view.
Various other measures addressing the problems of PhD students were accepted post-protest on 19th January by the administration and are under implementation.
Soumyadeep Datta, PG Representative of the Senate Educational Policy Committee (SEPC) quoted in a discussion,
“PhD is not a course-based degree, and research is, by nature, unpredictable. Different departments – even different specializations/fields in the same department – can have very different timelines for executing research work. Some fields might be more competitive than others regarding hiring prospects post-PhD. This needs to be considered while comparing PhD completion times across departments. However, some factors – as rightly pointed out in the survey – are common pain points, and the Institute bodies are trying to iron out issues. The process of consensus building has been slow since different departments and faculty members have very diverging viewpoints, but it is happening. The Institute needs to realize that the glamour of a PhD degree, even in the IITs, is declining rapidly due to word of mouth, and the program will soon have an existential crisis if concrete steps are not taken to address the time delays and other concerns.“
While the above covers varied aspects of PhD students’ academic life, we will be covering financial and personal problems PhD students face in the following piece. Stay tuned to read the second part of the article, where we explore more about PhD students and their problems on our campus.
Design By: Abhik Biswas, Harshpreet Kaur, Shivam Rathore
Edited By: Utkarsh Agrawal, Bhavya Sikarwar
Special Contributions By: Soumyadeep Datta
Written By: Aditya VS, Ayushi Waghmare, Likhith Sai Jonna, Mahaarajan J, Mayur Agrawal, Vijaya Mishra
