PhD Programme Analysis At India’s Top Five NITs

Many students dream of adding the highest academic qualification to their name – the PhD. The National Institute of Technology(NIT) is among the most prestigious technical institutes of the country, and many candidates want to pursue PhD from the many NITs located across India.

Over the last three years more than 500 candidates registered themselves for the PhD in the top five NIT. Between 70 to 121 students graduate each year from these top five NITs during the same period. NITs offers the part time and full time PhD courses at their campus.

Previously Careers360 had done the article about the PhD Candidates At India’s Top Five IITs, and this article is the next part of the study. Careers360 had taken the data from the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for the full-time and part-time PhD candidates registered in the top five NITs. It helped in knowing the actual situation of how many students were pursuing and graduating the PhD programmes.

Pursuing PhD Programme: Full-Time

The number of candidates pursuing PhD programmes in NITs has increased over the last three years since 2018-19, except NIT Warangal. About 11.6 per cent decrease was seen in NIT Warangal.

From 2020 to 2021, NIT Rourkela and NIT Warangal showed a decrease in the number of pursuing PhD candidates. Both institutes have the number of candidates decreased around nine per cent.

Student Pursuing Full-time PhD In Top 5 NITs over 3 Years

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PhD Candidates: Full-Time

With the increasing number of PhD candidates in NIT, major increase in graduating PhD candidates were seen only in NIT Tiruchirappalli. The rest of the NITs showed a decrease or a very minimal increase in the graduating PhD candidate’s number.

Graduated Full-time PhD Student In Top 5 NITs over 3 Years (including Integrated Ph.D)

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Average Pursuing V/s Successful Candidates In Full Time PhD

On average, for every seven to nine PhD candidates pursuing, there is just one candidate graduating the programme.

The average is calculated using the data from 2018-19 to 2020-21 for the average of pursuing candidates. While the graduating average is taken from five years data which is 2016-17 to 2020-21.

PhD Candidates(Full-time)

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PhD Candidates In Part-time Programme

For the part-time PhD candidates, the percentage of candidates graduating with respect to the ones pursuing is lower as compared to full-time PhD candidates, except in NIT Tiruchirappalli. NIT Tiruchirappalli showed a result for part-time candidates almost equivalent to full-time PhD candidates.

Pursing And Graduating PhD Candidates(Part-time) 2020-21

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Average Pursuing V/s Successful Candidates In Part-Time PhD Programme

Shockingly, NIT Rourkela has a good number of pursuing PhD candidates but over the period of five years not a single candidate has graduated from the programme.

PhD Candidates(Part-time)

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As compared to top five IITs, the full-time PhD candidates in NITs performed better. While for part-time, the performance was vice-versa. Nevertheless, India’s technical institutes have a varied and high percentage of scholars aspiring to get the coveted doctoral degree.