Sat Ma­haraj

In Ju­ly/Au­gust 2009, the Ma­ha Sab­ha wrote to the pres­i­dent and oth­er se­nior aca­d­e­mics of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) on the se­ri­ous is­sues of the aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards at UTT re­gard­ing specif­i­cal­ly the PhD. We were con­cerned that the Acad­e­my at UTT for Arts, Let­ters, Cul­ture and Pub­lic Af­fairs is at risk of not en­joy­ing ac­cred­i­ta­tion in the pub­lic's per­cep­tion. This con­cern was based on two main ob­ser­va­tions. First, the su­per­vi­sors that have been ap­point­ed to over­see the re­search of their PhD stu­dents have no ap­par­ent aca­d­e­m­ic in­tegri­ty in the area. Sec­ond, the stu­dents who are pur­su­ing their PhD de­grees have not ful­filled the stan­dard re­quire­ments which are manda­to­ry in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

To sup­port this charge we in­clud­ed the ti­tles of PhD re­search projects and the names of su­per­vi­sors at the acad­e­my at UTT as post­ed on its Web site: Fes­ti­val of T&T, Prof Brins­ley Sama­roo; The In­di­an Film In­dus­try of T&T, Prof Brins­ley Sama­roo; In­di­an Ge­neal­o­gy Project, Prof Ken­neth Ram­c­hand; The Ori­gins and Growth of In­di­an Mu­sic in T&T, Prof Brins­ley Sama­roo. Ac­cred­it­ed in­sti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing like Capel­la Uni­ver­si­ty re­quire dis­ser­ta­tion chairs to be spe­cial­ists in the work that they are su­per­vis­ing. They must al­so be ex­perts in the field un­der their su­per­vi­sion. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wa­ter­loo al­so has clear­ly-de­fined re­quire­ments for its su­per­vi­sors. They must have pub­lished a book, or at the very least sev­er­al ar­ti­cles in ref­er­eed jour­nals on the sub­ject/area they are su­per­vis­ing. The re­quire­ments for award­ing a PhD de­gree to a stu­dent vary through­out the world.

In some coun­tries (eg the US, Cana­da, Den­mark) most uni­ver­si­ties re­quire course­work in ad­di­tion to re­search for PhD de­gree. The re­quire­ments are some­times waived for those stu­dents sub­mit­ting a port­fo­lio of peer-re­viewed pub­lished work in the rel­e­vant area of re­search. In Cana­da, a stu­dent is re­quired to com­plete four to sev­en years of study on full-time ba­sis to grad­u­ate with a PhD. The min­i­mum re­quire­ments to get PhD ad­mis­sion to Cana­di­an high­er ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tutes is nor­mal­ly a Mas­ter's de­gree in the rel­e­vant sub­ject with suf­fi­cient­ly high grades and proven re­search abil­i­ty. Be­fore em­bark­ing on writ­ing a PhD dis­ser­ta­tion, a stu­dent will be re­quired to do a com­pre­hen­sive or qual­i­fy­ing ex­am­i­na­tion (both oral and writ­ten) to demon­strate his or her knowl­edge in a spe­cialised area. In uni­ver­si­ties in the UK, stu­dents who want to pur­sue a PhD will com­mon­ly have to be first ac­cept­ed in the MPhil pro­gramme.

Stu­dents in the US typ­i­cal­ly un­der­go a se­ries of three phas­es in the course of their work to­wards the PhD de­gree:

1. Two to three years of course­work in the stu­dent's field of study.

2. A com­pre­hen­sive ex­am­i­na­tion, or a se­ries of cu­mu­la­tive ex­am­i­na­tions

3. A dis­ser­ta­tion. The Ma­ha Sab­ha called up­on the pow­ers that be to in­ves­ti­gate the process through which PhDs at the acad­e­my are be­ing award­ed and re­ceived. There seems to be a de­fi­cien­cy in meet­ing in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards which can turn out to be a se­ri­ous em­bar­rass­ment, if not a scan­dal, for UTT. On Oc­to­ber 6, 2009, Prof Ken­neth S Julien, TC, UTT chair­man and pres­i­dent, replied re­quest­ing sug­ges­tions on the draft of the "Aca­d­e­m­ic Reg­u­la­tions, Poli­cies and Pro­ce­dures for Post-grad­u­ate Pro­grammes" as a re­sponse to our con­cerns. On Oc­to­ber 28, 2009, a com­pre­hen­sive list of rec­om­men­da­tions and com­ments was sub­mit­ted to the of­fice of the chair- man and pres­i­dent.

Some of the com­ments we made were as fol­lows:

En­try to the PhD pro­gramme will gen­er­al­ly be af­ter one of the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments has been met:

(i) Per­sons hold­ing a re­search Mas­ter's de­gree from an ap­proved uni­ver­si­ty amend­ed to in­clude "in the same sub­ject, area, field or dis­ci­pline in which the stu­dent is ap­ply­ing for the PhD."

(ii) Per­sons with­out an MA or MSc de­gree in the same sub­ject area, field or dis­ci­pline in which they are ap­ply­ing for the PhD shall do course­work. The du­ra­tion shall be two to three years of course­work with ex­ams in the stu­dent's field of study.

(iii) Per­sons hold­ing a taught Mas­ter's de­gree from an ap­proved uni­ver­si­ty and to in­clude "in the same sub­ject, area, field or dis­ci­pline in which the stu­dent is ap­ply­ing for PhD."

(iv) Per­sons with oth­er pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ex­pe­ri­ences deemed to be suit­able by the Post-grad­u­ate Stud­ies and Re­search Com­mit­tee. And to al­so in­clude: "This ex­pe­ri­ence re­quire- ment shall be cer­ti­fied by pro­fes­sion­als in the field, lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Per­sons shall al­so sub­mit a sat­is­fac­to­ry port­fo­lio of peer-re­viewed pub­lished work in the rel­e­vant area of re­search which will demon­strate proven re­search abil­i­ty."

(v) Ad­di­tion­al­ly to in­clude: "Per­sons hold­ing a BA or BSc de­gree shall not be el­i­gi­ble to en­ter the PhD pro­gramme."

Ap­point­ment of su­per­vi­sors rec­om­mend­ed:

i. Su­per­vi­sors shall be suit­able qual­i­fied per­sons who are spe­cial­ists and ex­perts in the work that they are su­per­vis­ing.

ii. Su­per­vi­sors should have pub­lished a book, or at the very least sev­er­al ar­ti­cles in ref­er­eed jour­nals on the sub­ject/area they are su­per­vis­ing.

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the

sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha