Teachers divided over mandatory attendance in JNU

NEW DELHI: As the elected representatives of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) were staging an ‘aakrosh dharna’ against the “undemocratic, authoritarian and unilateral functioning of the JNU administration and the V-C,” another group of 40-odd teachers, including the chief proctor Kaushal Kumar Sharma, came forward in the defence of the administration’s decision to make attendance mandatory in the institution.

“The fact is that the JNU administration is only formalising the procedures of attendance in classrooms, tutorials, discussion meetings as prescribed by the UGC guidelines as well as adopted by the JNU ordinance and the statutes of JNU,” reads a statement by the group of teachers.

However, the clause in the JNU ordinance they are referring to asks the dean of every school to “keep a record... of the attendance of the student,” with no reference to minimum required attendance.

The University Grants Commission (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of Mphil /PHD degrees) Regulations, 2016, does not mention attendance either, according to Sudhir K Suthar, the JNUTA general secretary.

Suthar said that they were planning to ask the JNU vice chancellor to point out exactly where in the UGC guidelines, a minimum attendance requirement, and 75% at that, was mentioned.

Atul Johri, a professor at the School of Life Sciences and the director of IQAC and the UGCHRD Centre, maintained that the various funding agencies, which gives the university fellowships, has prescribed only 30 days of leave for PHD scholars, which can be availed after consulting with their supervisor.

Johri said that the attendance requirement is mentioned in the 2010 UGC guidelines.

“As far as this is concerned that the scholar can’t go to teach anywhere, can’t go out for his research, everything is allowed... With the permission of the supervisor he/she can move anywhere,” said Johri.

He also added that many students go on “dharnas” instead of attending classes. Johri went on to say that if the “rules” had been implemented 20-30 years ago, the university would have been one of the top 100 universities in the world.

The group of teachers have also insisted that the decision was taken after a lengthy discussion on the matter in its Academic Council meeting held on December 1, 2017, a claim long challenged by the JNU teachers body and the dissenting students.

The JNU students union will take out a demonstration to the Union ministry of human resource development on Tuesday against the alleged attempts to “destroy the inclusive and liberal character of JNU”.