Enrolling in a full-time PhD with a decent fellowship is such a rare privilege in India that those who hold it are celebrated. (Representational image)Written by Rahee S G
As a researcher in the social sciences today, I am highly insecure at multiple levels. I know that I have no financial security, bleak career prospects and there is a serious threat to the very existence of my profession. A Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), which provides financial security for at least three years, should have left me elated. And yet, when I checked the results on November 5 and learnt that I have been awarded a JRF, I wasn’t happy.
Following the crisis posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the National Testing Agency (NTA) conducted a long-delayed National Eligibility Test (NET), combining two batches of applicants in one cycle in October. The students appearing for NET this year were facing the exam after going through increasing financial insecurity as a result of a failing post-pandemic economy. The NET has two kinds of benefits for successful candidates. The first is the qualification for teaching as an assistant professor. The second benefit is bestowed on a very small number of applicants, who are additionally awarded a Junior Research Fellowship. The JRF is a respectable amount awarded to a researcher, so that they can conduct their doctoral research without worrying about other means of sustenance. There are fewer and fewer means of survival for students of social sciences and hence, a great number of applicants appear for the NET hoping at least to be qualified to teach as an assistant professor.
Enrolling in a full-time PhD with a decent fellowship is such a rare privilege in India that those who hold it are celebrated and sometimes envied for managing to “appropriate taxpayer’s money”. Although there are a few other scholarships and fellowships available for research students in India, none apart from the JRF has an amount comparable to the salary of a job. The image of a 30-something-year-old PhD student “enjoying life without a job” is so discomforting for the public because PhD research is never considered a serious job in itself. India views its research students as if they are school children, worthy of respect only when they have a job that requires doing something besides “only studying”. Hence, fewer and fewer students receive any kind of fellowship to sustain themselves.
The NET shifted to a fully Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ)-based paper more than 20 years ago. In recent years, almost every significant test a student appears to be giving is an MCQ test. Students of humanities and social sciences agree that our disciplines cannot be expressed in terms of choosing one from “multiple choices”. We cannot do without descriptive, subjective ways of expression. And yet, completely ignoring the protests of scholars and experts from these disciplines, these tests are pushed by the administrations and normalised for the public.
It is not just the mode of assessment but the content of these tests is also unreasonable. Any good research in social sciences has to be analytical and critical. The MCQ-based NET ignores these basic qualities and tests only the factual knowledge of a candidate. Avijit Pathak (‘CUET is not KBC’, IE, August 19), criticised the “Kaun Banega Crorepati”-style university entrance exams. The NET is no different. Even the questions supposed to test “research aptitude” and “teaching aptitude” only ask for a fixed fact, which can be answered correctly by memorising it beforehand. The test in no way ensures the selection of a good teacher or a researcher.
This brings one to the way candidates prepare for the exams. There are several books and question paper sets available that may help to ensure success. There are some, although still a relatively small number, coaching classes promising “hundred per cent success” in the NET. But another factor that has entered the “market” since the pandemic is the edtech services. As online teaching-learning was encouraged during the lockdown, a few platforms captured and soon monopolised the online educational space. Since anyone can theoretically access these platforms from anywhere in the country, they are also considered to be “democratic” — provided one has smartphones, internet connectivity and means to pay for the internet. When one possesses all three, the platform will introduce a candidate to yet another hierarchy, where with an additional sum you can buy an increased guarantee of success in the NET. The “educators” in these online education markets will study patterns in question papers, spot sources of the syllabus, and even try and guess the background of paper-setters to give “only the information you need” for success in the exam.
And herein lies the problem of the contemporary post-truth world. With personalised searches on Google for “just the information you need”, AI-powered recommendations for entertainment “you will enjoy for sure” and the filter bubble on social media allowing in your cyberspace “only the people you like”, we are not allowed to see beyond “just” and “only”. It doesn’t allow one to see beyond what one wants to see. You end up coddling your prejudices and assumptions. In this world of information bubbles, a candidate preparing for the NET is never exposed to where the potential for any innovative research in social sciences lies. NET in the times of edtech is thus more likely to choose the “smart” candidates who are trained in a pedagogy antithetical to the one ensuring innovative research and teaching in social sciences.
We need people at the UGC and NTA to listen to experts in the humanities and social sciences. Only then can we hope for a more just, inclusive and democratic NET. A NET truly responsive to the essence of academic research and teaching in social sciences.
The writer is a PhD candidate at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University