PhD admission gaps: Why marginalised candidates struggle to fill reserved seats across central universities

NEW DELHI: While better than the premier technical and management institutions, central universities, too, have significant chunks of seats allotted for historically-marginalised communities going vacant each year. An analysis of data obtained through a Right to Information application shows that in some departments, for certain categories, admissions could be less than half of the seats available.

Activists have revealed the swathes of reserved PhD seats and teaching posts left unfilled at top-tier institutions, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management. Central universities have done better but the problem extends to them as well. Plus, the extent of reserved category admissions varies widely with the department and discipline, as the data shows.

Central policy requires 15% seats at all levels to be reserved for Scheduled Castes, 7.5% for Scheduled Tribes, 27% for Other Backward Classes and 5% for persons with disabilities. The vacancy rates at the PhD level have implications for recruitment of SC, ST, OBC faculty members in the future. Others, if they have responded at all, chose to stay mum on the number of seats filled against the number sanctioned.

Of over one dozen universities from which Careers360 sought data, four furnished it in a format that allowed analysis. Central Universities of Gujarat and Haryana, University of Delhi and Banaras Hindu University supplied institute and/or department-wise data on the Phd seats sanctioned and filled over five academic sessions.

The data also shows that over the years, the number of students opting for PhD has been rising. On the other side of it academics point out another trend that even though students from reserved category are completing their PhD’s but during recruitment, they are constantly being declared Not Found Suitable (NFS).

CUG PhD seats

At Central University of Gujarat, the fill-rate of PhD seats has varied from over 92% in 2020-21 to 57% during the peak covid pandemic year of 2021-22. That year, there was zero admission in Phd in Life Sciences, German Studies and Applied chemistry. Also, there was no admission of PwD candidates.

In 2023-24, Central University of Gujarat, now with 22 departments, had 169 sanctioned seats reserved but of these, 141 were filled – 83%. Only one disabled candidate was admitted, in comparative literature.

Admission rates in the PwD category are especially appalling. In 2019-20, just one candidate was admitted, in the nanosciences department. In 2020-21, there was one candidate each in security studies and education. Data for 2022-23 was not available.

Seats and vacancies by reservation category and year

Over the years the number of departments have increased from 13 in 2019-20 to 15 in 2020-21, 17 in 2021-22 and 22 in 2023-24.

In some years, the university had no seat sanctioned for reserved categories. For instance, in 2019-20 there were zero seats sanctioned for SC or ST for PhD in Social Management and Security Studies. In 2023-24 there were no vacancies for EWS and ST in education.

An official of the university said that this could have been because the department did not have a vacancy that particular year as per the roster system.

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“The University Grants Commission (UGC) Regulations 2022 state that a professor cannot guide more than eight PhD students. For associate professor it is six and for assistant professor, four. This could also be the reason,” said a faculty member asking not to be identified. Plus, COVID caused delays in the exit of previous batches of researchers, leading to a drop in intake.

BHU, DU PhD admission

Most departments of BHU have furnished data on the number of admissions and not the number of sanctioned and advertised seats.

The data from the departments which did is presented below.

PhD seats filled (2019-23)

None of these departments provided the number of seats or admissions for disabled candidates although the admission bulletin stated that the category will be provided 5% horizontal reservation.

In case of general surgery, there was one PWD seat each in September 2021, March 2022 and July 2022, but no admissions. The department of anatomy hasn’t had any ST or EWS seats for five years. In case of both SC and OBC, half the seats remained vacant.

The Department of History of Art had a handful of seats for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in 2023-24 to which it admitted two SC candidates but couldn’t find any Adivasi ones.

Ghan Shyam, head of the department of History at BHU, said, “The allocation of seats is a complex process as there are several factors. In BHU, there are two categories of admission: Research Entrance Test (RET) and RET-exempted. Though not for the entire university, I would like to add that in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences the SC/ST students are fairly represented. There are also cases where SC students appear in the unreserved list as well.”

Admission for PhD in central universities is now based on the UGC-National Eligibility Test (NET) scores. The PhD admissions are held in two sessions.

However, he added that there are several ultra specialised departments that struggle to find candidates even in the unreserved category.

He cited the department of Vikriti Vigyan – a part of Ayurveda – as an example. In 2023-24, of the total nine seats, just two were filled, one each in unreserved and SC segments.

That said, there are also popular departments like statistics where, in the last five years, out of the total 96 seats, there were only six SC and four ST candidates. Here, too, there were no details on PWD candidates.

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Central University of Haryana provided sanctioned Phd seats for all reserved and UR categories. In 2020-21, there were 11 seats earmarked for the PwD candidates but in 14 departments out of the total 25, there were no PhD vacancies. In the following year, it just said that PWD reservation will be provided as per Government of India rules.

Delhi University’s records for 2024-25 show the most seats have been filled in most categories but once again, in the case of differently-abled candidates, some departments have been unable to complete the quotas.

PhD programs: PwD candidates

Satendra Singh, professor at University College of Medical Sciences and disability rights advocate, told Careers360, “The reservation has been in place after the 1995 Act was implemented. Earlier it was 3% and now it is 5%. But many times the seats are not filled. There is also a pattern that you will find [of their being] more students who are either visually-impaired or have locomotor disability. Now, since we have 21 disabilities, there is a need for disaggregated data based on all disabilities. Now, we have newer disabilities like dyslexia, haemophilia and so, I don’t know the reason why the seats can’t be filled. Universities are also mandated to have an Equal Opportunity Cell who are supposed to ensure admission of people with disabilities.”

Recently, the UGC asked universities to provide details of their EOC cells . This came following a Supreme Court order on a PIL related to caste-based discrimination in universities.

Singh added, “Not only EOC, there was also an order on establishing an Enabling Unit. However, it is to be seen how many universities have actually conducted it.”

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DU professor Vikas Gupta, wrote in The Wire, “Earlier, all enrolled PWD research scholars in higher education received fellowships. However, about a little more than a decade ago, the number of fellowships for them was fixed at 500. But over the last few years, only 200 fellowships for PWD could be disbursed. This is the situation even without any test. In such a situation, the UGC and NTA have for the first time linked the fellowship of PWD applicants to NET scores. It also subjects them to the regime of yearly validation of their NET scores for PhD admissions. This testing scheme is therefore likely to become another mechanism of their exclusion.”

PhD Admission: Vacant seats

Academics and research scholars point out two main reasons behind the seats not being filled– the disadvantages faced by students from the background in terms of language and the financial burden.

Prem Chand, assistant professor of political science at Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, said, “First the problem begins during the admission process itself. Those who belong to a rural background and want to come here have a language barrier.” As the admission process entails personal interview, many get rejected during the process, he said.

Plus, research without a Junior Research Fellowship is a financial burden most can’t afford.

Members of the All India Research Scholars Association (AIRSA) highlight that due to s ome fellowships being cancelled, the burden has increased.

“Earlier there was a scheme called the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship for upliftment of SC/ST/OBC and minority community for doing MPhil and PhD. It was for those who did not clear JRF and the amount was almost similar. The scheme has been renamed and the allocation has been reduced continuously over the years. There is also a delay in the disbursal of scholarships which causes a lot of stress to students even after getting admission,” said Sudhir Pal, national general secretary, AIRSA.

The now renamed National Fellowship Scheme for SC and ST was started in 2005-06 to prevent students from dropping out due to financial problems.

Chand, who was then a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University said: “A movement was started in JNU when the students from the reserved categories were facing problems. A committee headed by political science professor CP Bhambri recommended providing such financial help. Professor Thorat was the UGC chairman so we submitted a memorandum to him and upon his instruction the EOC was set up. I was a student representative then. As JNU had built on the foundation, now several centre heads belong to these communities. We can’t see it in other universities.”

AIRSA also highlighted the discrimination and harassment students from these communities face.

“Discrimination against such students by the supervisors and deans during the course work and experiments is common. Research scholars from reserved categories are not treated well and exposed to harassment….They don’t get support from their peers either,” said Pal.

Chand pointed out that there is a need to look into the drop out rates of PhD students as well.

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After PhD degree what next

The PhD admissions would be less concerning if there wasn’t a close relationship between the number of PhDs emerging and recruitment. Here, too, there’s a problem.

“After completing studies with a lot of difficulty, once they try for a job there is an increasing trend of declaring NFS. In DU it has become quite a trend,” said Chand. “ NFS” stands for “not found suitable”.

In 2024, a parliamentary panel had said that SC and ST candidates are deliberately declared NFS for appointment as faculty members in educational institutions because of "biased" assessment by selection panels. Last year, DU teachers had written to the vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh stating that among the candidates for reserved teaching posts, the university marked 44% as NFS, ultimately appointing only 29%.

Data in the 2023-24 annual report of the UGC shows that actual representation of marginalised communities fall below their quota sizes for every category. Out of the total 14,121 faculty in 46 central universities, the following was the extent of representation for each community:

• SC: 11.2%

• ST: 4.9%

• OBC: 15.6%

• EWS: 2.2%

• PwD: 1.7%

At the higher levels of academic, such as the ranks of association professor and professor, the numbers are even more dismal.

Kuldeep Ambedkar, an advocate who also runs an organisation called, Student Helping Hands in Pune, added, “In another story there is no job opportunity for PhD students also mostly it is the government setup. But in Maharashtra for the last seven-eight years no recruitment of professors has taken place. Students who have completed PhD are now working as guest lecturers in coaching institutes with meagre salaries.”