These aspirants will no more have to carry the mental burden of clearing the National or State Eligibility Test (NET/SET) considering that the PhD degree holders are exempted from these qualifying tests for the lecturer's job. In an attempt to raise standards of the universitylevel research programmes, the University Grants Commission (UGC) had notified on July 11, 2009, the fresh guidelines for all universities to follow while enrolling students for doctoral research programmes.

Among other things, the guidelines made it mandatory for the universities to conduct an entrance test for PhD enrolments and the varsities were given the discretion of devising their own models of PhD entrance tests. The UGC also made a PhD degree mandatory for appointment to the post of lecturers at universities or affiliated colleges.

Taking the PhD route is seen by the job aspirants as a more convenient option compared to the NET/SET, which are widely viewed as difficult tests to clear. For instance, the success rate of the SET being conducted by the UoP across Maharashtra and Goa since 1994, has never gone beyond 5 per cent, barring the odd exceptions.

The preference to PhD over NET/SET is further manifested in the huge response drawn by the twostage PhD entrance exams, which is scheduled for February 14 (general aptitude paper) and February 21 (subject-specific paper).

Source: Times Of India 12K to appear for UoP's Ph.D entrance tests