SPPU MPhil Students to No Longer Receive Financial Aid

Savitribai Phule Pune University will not provide financial support to MPhil students from the next academic year. Those who have taken admission in the current academic year can apply for the fellowship but they will have to send their topics to be vetted for “national relevance”. Students see this move as a threat to research. This decision followed SPPU’s decision to convert its stipend system into a fellowship for research scholars last month.

SPPU has said that it is continuing with the fellowship despite the UGC not giving any financial support, the students are not happy. They said they have been demanding their stipends which are due since June 2018. SPPU had then responded by converting that into a fellowship. Earlier, it was stated that every applicant will be eligible for fellowship however a circular issued on March 22 had said that the students will have to present their topic before a panel and only the selected students will get the stipend and only for a year though the MPhil’s duration is 18 months. A student with the Marathi department said that this signifies SPPU is working on bringing down the number of researchers.

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The students are also concerned about accepting only topics of ‘national importance’. While any topic can be made to relate to India, such criteria should not apply to research.

Another MPhil student said that MPhil is a prerequisite to Ph.D. and by doing away with the stipend, the university is demotivating students. Also, the students feel that there should be some liberty in choosing research topics and not every topic can be of national importance so they are now planning to object to the circular as stipends prove to be very helpful for students from the rural background and economically weaker sections.

Dr. NS Umarani, pro-vice chancellor at SPPU said that while MPhil is important for research, they will offer fellowship to students for the June 2018-19 session. From the next year onwards, they have cancelled the stipend as the UGC is not in favour of funding such students and regarding national importance, he said he wants students to involve themselves in quality research, which could be used at the national level.

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Supporting the move, Uttam Chavan, deputy registrar, academics at SPPU stated that the university has some fund limitations due to which they have stopped the MPhil stipend. It is one-year course which can get extended by about six months and the students will not get any fellowship for it.