New Delhi, Feb. 7: Students pursuing two-year and three-year diploma courses at the Pune-based Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) will now be eligible for admission to PhD courses and for jobs requiring a master's degree.

The Association of Indian Universities (AIU), an organisation that gives equivalence to diploma courses and foreign degrees, has equated six PG diploma programmes of the institute with a master's degree.

They are the three-year PG diploma courses in direction and screenplay writing, cinematography, sound recording and sound design, editing, and art direction and production design, and the two-year graduate diploma in acting.

Professor Furqan Qamar, the AIU secretary general, said the institute had sought equivalence since students were facing difficulties in pursuing further studies. The AIU had set up a panel, which visited the institute. The AIU governing council has approved the panel's recommendations. "The certificates on these programmes will now be treated as master's degrees," Qamar said.