Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship open for students from all universities

The Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) which was earlier applicable for students from IISc, IITs, NITs, IISERs and the centrally funded IIITs will now be open for students from all universities.  Under the PMRF a research grant of Rs 2 lakh is provided per year and Rs 70,000 is given every month to a student. On Friday, In a three-day conference of vice-chancellors headed by HRD minister Prakash Javadekar, it was amended that all the students looking for admission in Full-Time PhD programmes will be eligible for the Fellowship programmes but they will be subjected to some conditions. The HRD minister, Prakash Javadekar released the All India survey of  Higher Education (AISHE) report and stated that there has been an increase in the Gross Enrolment Ratio from 25.2% during the year 2016-17 to 25.8% during the year 2017-18. Prakash Javadekar said

“Lack in innovation and quality research is the foremost challenge before the country. Quality expansion and teaching reform is the need of the hour,”.

The report also stated that the total higher education enrolment has been estimated to be 36.6 million including 19.2 million boys and 17.4 million girls. 47.6% of the total enrolment was estimated to be girls. The All India Survey for higher education was started in the year 2011 to prepare a comprehensive database on higher education. This survey was then made an annual exercise by the government after seeing the benefits of the data collected from the first report. All the research projects of the HRD including IMPacting Research, INnovation and Technology (IMPRINT) will now be opened for the teachers and students from all the universities. To avoid plagiarism, all the universities will be provided with the Turnitin software free of cost.