Delhi School of Journalism to launch MPhil, PhD courses by 2020

New Delhi: The Delhi School of Journalism (DSJ), which started in September last year, plans to introduce MPhil and PhD level courses by 2020. Currently, the college offers a five-year integrated course in journalism.

As many as 11,800 students appeared for the entrance exam this year for the integrated programme in journalism. This is a huge increase from the 2,600 applications received in the college’s maiden year.

“The college is going to begin with its Masters course in the year 2020. Following this, it is expected that the college will start to open admissions for the PhD and MPhil courses,” Dr Manasvini M. Yogi, the officer on special duty (OSD) of DSJ, said.

“Though it is an integrated course, an exit option at the end of three years will be given to students who wish to work immediately after their Bachelors course,” Dr Manasvini added.

This will further open opportunities for students hailing from other courses and colleges to sit for DSJ’s entrance exam for the Masters course.

The college also plans to introduce a number of short term courses in photography, video editing, documentary film making, sports and science journalism by October this year.

Raja Babu, a journalism aspirant who appeared for the entrance exam held on June 19, said: “I am keenly interested in studying journalism and DSJ has specially emerged as an opportunity for me and many young boys like me.”

In total, six colleges offer journalism under Delhi University (DU). Out of this, four are all-girls colleges. Therefore, not many boys get the opportunity to study this course from DU.

It is also expected that DU will soon set up a department of journalism and bring the segregated journalism department of all colleges under one ambit.

“Currently, most of the faculty in the department is not permanent. As soon as the department is set up, it will primarily help colleges recruit permanent faculty members,” said Dr Nivedita Giri, the co-coordinator of the journalism department of Kalindi College.

She further added, “There will be a parent department to deal with all the administrative works of the department.”

Currently, the department of journalism of these segregated colleges rely on other departments, which act as parent department for them.”

“Once the department is in place, all Delhi University colleges offering journalism courses would be able to offer Masters in the subject,” added Dr Giri.