Giving a fresh impetus to promote research in various disciplines, Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) will admit 175 Ph.D. scholars in a month. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has sanctioned Rs.10 crore for non-NET Ph.D. fellowships as part of the XII Plan general development assistance grant.
This was announced by Vice-Chancellor Kalyani Mathivanan while presenting the chairperson’s report at the Senate meeting here on Friday. Already, there are 215 part-time candidates and 160 full-time candidates who have registered for Ph. D.. Totally, 97 teachers had been given approval to act as research supervisors. The varsity has applied to the UGC for University with Potential for Excellence (UPE) phase-II grant after completing the first phase. It has also applied for Innovation Programme Initiatives of the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development and is short-listed as the only university from Tamil Nadu among 10 varsities in the country.
Dr. Mathivanan informed the Senate that academic audit had been conducted for all departments and centres during July and August . The review of audit reports was in progress after which appropriate recommendations would be proposed for quality improvement.
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She said that MKU would accord priority to sports facilities. An open air stadium was under construction at a cost of Rs.90 lakh. “The construction will be completed soon and we are planning to invite renowned athlete P. T. Usha to inaugurate the stadium,” she added.
Another initiative is provision of teleconferencing facility in the Directorate of Distance Education to facilitate e-learning/teaching. Already, the question paper pattern has been modified for first-year UG and PG courses.
“It has been decided to make a beginning with 40 per cent objective online questions for first-year PG courses from January for all distance education students registered from January this year. Answer-sheet with barcode facility is also on the anvil,” Dr. Mathivanan said.
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