Saswati Sarma
New Delhi , October 1 : The Central government has decided to defer the plan to make the minimum qualification of PhD for recruitment of assistant professors this year , considering the COVID-19 pandemic.
While speaking to the media , Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan stated that the ministry has put a provisional delay on PhD for the recruitment and PhD would not be mandatory for this post for the time being but has not been cancelled. The move is awaited to fill the vacant teaching posts across higher education institutes faster.
According to the Education Ministry sources , the ministry had received various requests from candidates who wished to apply for the post but couldn’t fulfil their PhD requirement asking to postpone the 2018 guidelines. Due to the pandemic , many candidates were unable to complete their PhDs and were appealing to the government to ease the eligibility this year , as universities have been closed and research activities suffered due to the pandemic.