Dravida University: Off-campus PhD admissions raise concerns

Tirupati: The off-campus (part time) PhD admissions in Dravidian University, Kuppam, continue to go unabated defying the UGC norms and government guidelines. The Parents’ Association of Andhra Pradesh (PAAP) has raised serious concerns regarding these PhD admissions, calling for strict action against university officials.

Alleging widespread non-compliance with University Grants Commission (UGC) regulations, PAAP wrote a letter to the UGC demanding the cancellation of unauthorised off-campus PhD programmes and insisted on transparency in the university’s administration.

For over 14 years, Dravidian University has reportedly been offering off-campus PhD admissions, often without adequate faculty and resources. Despite UGC’s 2009 mandate prohibiting off-campus PhD programmes, admissions continued, resulting in over 8,500 such enrolments. In several cases, students were admitted in subjects not available within the university’s official curriculum, raising questions about the legitimacy of these programmes.

The state president of PAAP S Narahari told The Hans India that recently, UGC issued notices to Dravidian University for disregarding its directive on off-campus PhD programmes. Following this, university officials travelled to Delhi to address these allegations. In addition, the university’s adherence to UGC norms, executive council resolutions and court directives came under scrutiny.

Needless to say that in view of the prima facie evidence on violations of UGC regulations, EC resolutions and court orders in the award of MPhil/PhD degrees in Dravidian University, the chancellor appointed Dr Justice B Seshasayana Reddy earlier as an Inquiring Authority to probe further into the matter which submitted its report in August 2023.

In the report, the Inquiring Authority has clearly reported that there is amount of negligence and carelessness on the part of former vice-chancellors Prof E Satyanarayana and Prof Tummala Ramakrishna (who was in office at the time of the inquiry) in notifying the award of the MPhil/PhD degrees and recommended disciplinary action against them. The report highlighted that the university had continued to grant PhD degrees without explicitly labelling them as off-campus, potentially misleading students.

Narahari alleged that even after the appointment of incharge Vice Chancellor Prof M Doraswamy, daily 2-3 off-campus PhDs are being awarded while the number of regular PhDs was very less.

He said that they wrote a letter to the UGC seeking to disclose all permissions granted for PhD admissions for 2023-24 and 2024-25 and for a comprehensive review of all off-campus PhD programmes.