The University of Karachi (KU) has decided to cancel the equivalence degrees of all those candidates who seek to enrol in the PhD programme after obtaining two or more MA degrees in separate disciplines and bypassing the requirement of acquiring an MPhil degree, Pakistan Today has learnt. Sources said that with the introduction of the MS system, the university management has been granting MPhil equivalence degrees to their blue-eyed students who have obtained two or more MA degrees in separate disciplines.
The politically-motivated equivalence committee has been granting MPhil equivalence degrees to some of those candidates who want to escape the tough MS system and enrol themselves in the PhD programme, the sources added. They said that this illegal activity emerged when a candidate with three MA degrees and an MPhil equivalence degree tried to enrol in the PhD programme at one of the departments of the university.
Before the introduction of the MS system, the university was offering every student with 60 percent marks in the final year of MA to enrol in the MPhil programme, but after the university introduced the MS system for admission in the PhD programme, students have started using shortcuts, they added. Sources said that many students cannot even clear the entry test for admission in the MS programme, and that the university has imposed the condition of completing a one-year study in the MS programme before being eligible for enrolling in the PhD programme.
The university also requires at least 73 percent marks in both the semester examinations of the one-year programme, whereas 75 percent attendance is also mandatory in the MS programme, the sources added. They said that since the criteria for enrolling in the PhD programme have been made stricter, students have started using the back door for acquiring a PhD degree because the university policy does not allow granting MPhil equivalence degrees to candidates with two or more MA degrees as prerequisite for admission in the PhD programme. In a letter to the vice chancellor, KU Faculty of Arts Dean Zafar Iqbal said that even if a candidate possesses over a dozen MA degrees, he or she could not be awarded an MPhil equivalence certificate for admission in the PhD programme.
The dean also said that acquiring an MPhil degree requires research; he asked in his letter how it was possible to award a candidate with an MPhil degree when he or she does not have any know-how of research.
KU Pro-Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs said that the Board of Advance Studies and Research has been asked to gather record of all those candidates who have enrolled in the PhD programme on the basis of an MPhil equivalence certificate. “The matter would then be discussed in the Academic Council and the KU Syndicate to decide the fate of these candidates, whereas the Equivalence Committee has also been asked to provide details of such candidates at the earliest,” she added.
Quoting the example of Prof Dr Abdul Hafeez Pasha – Independent Economic Advisory Committee member and Beaconhouse National University-Lahore Social Sciences Dean – the pro-vice chancellor said that Pasha had obtained two MA degrees from London, but he received a PhD degree only after acquiring an MPhil degree from the Stanford University in California.
It is impossible to allow a candidate to enrol in the PhD programme without an MS or MPhil degree, but the fate of such candidates would be decided soon, she added.
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