After Smriti Irani, the Union Minster of HRD, on Monday, April 4, suggested giving all the women and the differently-abled students across India will extra time to complete their Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) and Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D), on Tuesday the Union Grants Commission (UGC) has officially announced to relax the criteria for these candidates.

All the women including more than 40 percent disability candidates will be given extra one year to complete their Master of Philosophy (MPhil) papers and a extra two years will be given to students pursuing PhD.

Moreover, to give more benefits for married women who are pursuing these two courses will be given maternity leave and child care leave for up to 240 days.

In addition, all the students who are registered to M Phil/ PhD before June 11, 2009 will now get award of degrees that will be governed under the previous laws and regulations.

Also, these students will be exempted from the minimum eligibility criteria of National Eligibility Criteria (NET) or state level eligibility criteria including all the candidates applying for the post of assistant professor or equivalent post.

The entire women scholar, who needs to relocate because of marriage, will be allowed to transfer the research data to the university where she wants to shift.

Now, under the new recommendations, it would be mandatory for all scholars to give credit to her parent and institution in their previous research.

An autonomous status will be given to all the colleges that are attributed with high grades in two running cycles with a highest accreditation grade in the third from The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) only is they succeeds in obtaining an No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the affiliated institute/ university.

(Read: HRD minister Smriti Irani announces benefits for women, disabled PhD students)



Earlier, this suggestion came to promote more participation of these candidates in educational fields so that they can compete with others.

Moreover, Irani also stated that though many women pursue higher education in India, only a few have been joining as faculty in universities/ institutes.

Further, she added, "In terms of M.Phil for two years, we have extended that limit to three years, and in Ph.D, we are hoping to increase it to eight years instead of six."

Speaking on the allowances for these women, she said, "We are also going to ensure that we give them allowance for migration from one university to another, given that the facilities within the area they are working on is available in the university they are migrating to."

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