The University Grants Commission (UGC) will be extending the validity of the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) award letter by an additional year. The decision has been taken to help UGC NET (National Eligibility Test) qualified scholars who faced hardship during their admission process due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Making the announcement through a tweet, UGC chairperson Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar added that the official notification of the order will be out soon.
“UGC has decided to extend the validity period of the JRF award letter up to one year (beyond the three-year period) for all those UGC NET qualified candidates whose admission process was affected due to COVID 19 pandemic situation. The notification is being issued,” tweeted the UGC chairperson.
UGC has decided to extend the validity period of the JRF award letter up to one year (beyond the three year period) for all those UGC NET qualified candidates whose admission process was affected due to COVID 19 pandemic situation. The notification is being issued. pic.twitter.com/BWj90kGklO— Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar (@mamidala90) March 28, 2022
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Currently, the NET JRF e-certificate is valid for 3 years from the date of declaration of the result but with this extension, the award letter will be valid for a total of four years now. The e-certificate for assistant professor, however, is valid for a lifetime.
The UGC NET December 2020 and June 2021 cycles had to be conducted jointly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Testing Agency (NTA) conducted the exams between November 20, 2021, and January 5, 2022, followed by the announcement of the result on February 19. The exam had to be deferred multiple times due to the pandemic before it could finally be conducted.
The entrance cum qualifying exams were held for 81 subjects at 837 centres in more than 230 Indian cities. A total of 12,66,509 candidates had registered for the exam, out of which 6,71, 228 appeared and 52,857 qualified.
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The government had made PhD mandatory for the recruitment of assistant professors across all UGC recognized colleges in 2018. However, the effective implementation of the decision was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ministry of Education was forced to withhold the implementation for a year to allow colleges to fill the vacant posts last year.
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