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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 on 20th July, 2023 to the PhD community receiving ~200 responses, with many students also sharing their anecdotal experiences. The first part of the article details the demographic division of the respondents and deals with problems in the academic sphere. The article can be read here.
Continuing with our analysis, the second part below presents an investigation of the financial and personal problems of the PhD students. We also uncover the various mental issues and the stigma around it in PhD students. The survey results are triangulated with comments from various professors such as heads of departments, the Chairperson of the Student Postgraduate Committee (SPGC), the Dean, Research and Development (DoRD), and the head of Counselling Service to gain a holistic view of the issues.
Financial Constraints
The key source of funds for the PhD students is the institute assistantship, as most of the respondents received a sum of 30-40K monthly, according to the survey response. The government of India recently raised the stipend against 8 hours of teaching assistantships, post-conduction of this survey.
A detailed division of monthly emoluments received is provided in the graph below, as collected from the survey.
Also, it must be noted that the above assistantship is continued only for 5 years, after which 10k is given per month for one semester, followed by 8k monthly the next. After this, the assistantship is stopped. This forms a critical concern given that a PhD extension beyond the 5th year is so common.
Our survey also showed that around 84% of the respondents are expected to contribute financially to their families. In another question, when asked if they were satisfied with the current cumulative stipend (before the raise), around 85% of the respondents expressed denial, expressing the need to it increase it.
We had a number of different opinions shared by the respondents about the PhD stipend.
“Since PhDs are adults, we are expected to support our parents and use our money wisely. Since 35k stipends are used for many things, such as tuition fees, hall fees, accommodation, food, etc, 35k fund is quite tight. The process of refund of research grant which takes very long time makes it worse.”
“The fellowship for a PhD scholar is sufficient to cover his/her expenses after the recent hike in fellowship.”
Prof Tarun Gupta, Dean, Research and Development (DoRD), suggested that
“Fellowship reduction can be matched by PI after 5 years if the student has financial needs. The natural extension should be given. Even when the PI cannot aid, the Head of the Department should chip in and provide funds if the need is legitimate. No department is short of resources, and PhDs should be supported and respected.”
We asked Prof. Santanu Misra, Head Counselling Service, and he commented that
“ICS is unable to directly address the financial challenges faced by PhD students, as this falls outside the scope of our responsibilities. However, students have the option to apply for an interest-free loan via the SBF, the process for which is quite simple and available on both ICS and DOSA websites. Nevertheless, it is a good idea and I strongly encourage PG students to engage in proper financial planning and make savings that can be used after the completion of regular fellowship. This saving is also useful for many other purposes even after finishing the degree.”
Lab funds
Many of the subjective responses to our survey commented on the monetary situation in their labs. On the use of lab funds, while most of the respondents were unsure of the situation, 34% opined that they were used appropriately or distributed among the students. However, scattered dissent on the same was visible in the subjective responses and anecdotal experiences.
“Project money is mostly used for guide’s personal purposes. Guide told us to spend our own money for research even if we have the funding for the same area.”
“None of the amount allotted for the lab development is used on students. All are used by the supervisor.”
Talking with professors on the issue, most denied its presence on a large scale, though accepted the existence of exceptions. Prof Tarun Gupta, DoRD mentions:
“It is neither possible nor the mandate of DoRD to micromanage the projects. However, there is a strong surveillance mechanism in place. All capital instruments purchased are entered in the stock register, and annual stock verification happens across the institute for assets not written off. There is a proper system of checks and balances in place, and a Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO)* takes care of it.”
*The Chief Vigilance Officer of the Institute assists the Director in all vigilance related matters. Currently Prof. Ashwani Kumar Thakur currently serves at this position.
Conferences
Attending conferences is integral to research. The current situation of funding for conference registration and travel can be understood by the survey response, where most respondents who needed funds could avail partial sums of money, with only 5 of them mentioning that they couldn’t get any support.
Dr. B.V. Phani, Head, Department of Management Sciences, informed us about a Cumulative Professional Development Allowance (CPDA) provided to each faculty member for travel support in attending conferences, etc,
He added, generous travel support is also provided to students of IITK at all levels, for UG & Masters Students and here for PhD Students.
In case additional support is needed both the department from its Department Promotion Accounts (DPA) and the concerned faculty advisor from their Professional Development Accounts (PDA) also provide additional support. The money available in the Departmental and Personal Development accounts comes primarily from various consultancy and research projects undertaken by the faculty in addition to their teaching, mentoring and advisor responsibilities.
Personal Life
Students everywhere face a myriad of problems in their personal lives, which can eventually severely impact their academic journey. We looked at the various personal issues PhD students on our campus face and the administration’s efforts to address these concerns.
While various insights were received about the PhD students on campus, we observed that sustaining motivation for PhD is hard. 60% of the respondents have at least once thought of dropping their PhD during their stay. Dividing this 60%, 40% of them eventually got motivated by someone or some achievement and 20% still had the thought at the time of the survey.
We talked with professors about the statistics who emphasised on the importance of sustaining motivation for a quality PhD outcome.
Dr. B.V. Phani pushes for enhancing and encouraging various activities already undertaken by some departments to enhance and promote research at IITK. He shared that
“In the department we have created a system where at least one student or more are encouraged to present their work weekly with other students acting as discussants. In addition measures have also been put in place for students to mandatorily attend regular seminars from industry, post doctoral fellows and prospective faculty. Further the students are also encouraged to attend research workshops, doctoral colloquium’s, summer schools, to broaden their horizons and help them in holistic knowledge acquisition during their stay here, thus inculcating a culture and thirst for knowledge acquisition, which he believes is a life long process for both students and faculty alike.”
Mental health
On questions about mental health, around 80% of the respondents reported that they had experienced anxiety and various mental illnesses in their PhD programme, and over 34% are actively fighting to overcome it. The survey response also tells the manner of combating mental illness. While around 62% of the people who suffered from any form of mental illnesses could battle them out with the help of their friends and family, only 11% took aid from the Counselling Service (CS), and another 10.5% took the help of someone outside to battle their mental illnesses, while 16% didn’t take any assistance until now.
We talked with Prof. Santanu Misra, Head of Counselling Service, on various questions arising from the above trends and the role counselling service plays.
On asking about the limited reach of CS, he mentioned that
“The number of students approaching ICS is has increased over the years. This increase is also due to the fact that we now have a larger number of PG students than in previous years. In our regular de-addiction clinic sessions, students seek help for more than just addiction, and often come to us with a variety of personal issues. The consultant psychiatrists and the institute counsellors are committed to listening to all the problems they present and providing the best care possible.”
We also asked in our survey about the social life of the students on campus. On their social relations, 33% of the respondents admitted feeling isolated or lacking friends.
On the question about their extra curricular involvement around 70% of the respondents are unable to participate in such activities. The primary factor contributing to this limited involvement is the the time constraint.
In the subjective response to this section of the survey, there were some remarks on the confidentiality maintained in Counselling Service.
“Though there is a counselling service, but I have heard of my friends that they don’t at all keep things secret. They involve the department and as usual they insist to drop the PhD consequently as they don’t want to take responsibility.”
For the above concern and on problems involving the guide of studnet, the CS head commented,
“The students first approach our counsellors as they are the trained professionals who prioritize confidentiality in all student-counsellor sessions. Our counsellors understand the importance of privacy and breaching it can have serious consequences to the purpose of the ICS. Therefore, the counsellors only share Information to me, if administrative support is required, and even then, it’s only after obtaining the student’s consent.
Concerning the student-supervisor conflict, my observation is that it is mostly due to a lack of communication between the student and supervisor. IIT Kanpur has several mechanisms in place to resolve this problem, for example, DPGCs, Doctoral Monitoring Committees, DSAC etc. However, there is a definite need to enhance their effectiveness and develop a more PG student-friendly environment in the campus.”
We also talked about the role of the PG core team with Prof. Misra. Talking about the participation of PGs in the counselling service, he mentioned that the purview of the PG core team is limited compared to the UG team.
“The majority of the PG core team members in the ICS are M. Tech. students. I believe involvement of PhD students in the ICS is crucial, though currently, their participation is significantly low, sometimes even non-existent. It is essential to acknowledge that PG students at IIT Kanpur, including PhD candidates, experience a journey distinct from that of our UG students. They engage in specialized coursework, devote more time to research-sometimes alone in the lab, and often juggle family responsibilities and future career planning. Given these unique challenges and staying inside a campus, PG students must establish a harmonious presence on campus and maintain a healthy work-life balance. If more PhD students join the ICS, it will make the support system better for all postgraduate students at the institute, as it will meet their specific needs and requirements.”
Students also mentioned the lower number of leaves and increasing them for better mental health, on which the SPGC chairperson said, “The new PGARC has taken this into consideration and necessary policy change has been incorporated. He also mentioned about the Joint Degree programs for PG students“.
TA duty
TA duty also plays an integral part in the student’s journey. While most respondents were satisfied with their teaching duties, some problems were also reported to us. However, not all students were required to work on TA duty, with respondents commenting that they hadn’t been given any TA duty.
Some of the key problems the respondents reported are:
PMRF teaching duties are haphazard and need to be made effective.
Allotment was a key problem reported by students. They noted that they often don’t get courses of their choice, and the distribution also depends highly on professors.
Some students also commented that the actual hours of work become more than the fixed hours of work.
“4 hours per week is required. But we have to make presentations, question papers, solve doubts from students and check their papers, which requires more than 4 hours per week.“
Variability is observed in teaching duties, and conditions also vary with semester. Students mentioned about lack of specified TA duties, which leads them doing a wide range of tasks from making questions in exams to regularly attending classes.
Conclusion
While it is evident that the PhD culture at IITK is no exception to problems, as with every human-made institution, the importance is of their recognition and a collective temperament to strive towards solving them.
While analysing the presented results, one must note that the investigation is based on a survey response designed to detect problems in the system. We must keep in mind that the current system also produces some of the best research scholars in the nation. This efforts draws attention to the current lags in the system and the need to actively incorporate student concerns into the decision-making process, ultimately contributing to a more enriching PhD experience at IITK.
Design By: Abhik Biswas, Harshpreet Kaur, Shivam Rathore
Edited By: Bhavya Sikarwar, Soumyadeep Datta, Utkarsh Agrawal
Written By: Aditya VS, Ayushi Waghmare, Likhith Sai Jonna, Mahaarajan J, Mayur Agrawal, Vijaya Mishra
