Students with four-year undergraduate degree can directly pursue Ph.D, says UGC chairman

The University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman Jagadesh Kumar on Wednesday said students with four-year undergraduate degree can directly pursue Ph.D programmes.

The chairman said universities can decide whether to offer three-year Honours degree or four-year undergraduate programme.

"3-year undergraduate courses won't be discontinued until 4-year programme fully implemented," PTI quoted UGC as saying.


The UGC had been planning to announce new guidelines towards enabling a more liberalised and flexible framework for undergraduate education as well as research and PhD courses.

Earlier in March this year, the UGC had held a meeting where it was decided to approve the guidelines for a more flexible undergraduate education format.

As per the new guidelines discussed, semester 1, 2 and 3 were expected to aim at developing an understanding of all major areas of learning such as natural sciences, social sciences, the humanities, mathematical and computational thinking and analysis, and vocational education.

"It is in semesters 4, 5 and 6 that students will choose a disciplinary or an interdisciplinary area of learning for specialisation as major and minor. In semester 7 and 8, student will take up research project along with advanced disciplinary/interdisciplinary courses," a report had stated.