Failing the university

JNU administration’s new admission procedures go against the university’s ethos and character

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY is in resistance mode again. The protests, this time, have implications not only for JNU but all universities in the country. The university administration’s proposed procedure for admission to PHD programmes, and the cap on number of PHD students per supervisor, following the UGC’S 2016 regulation, has caused immense discontent among the students and faculty. There would be serious ramifications if other universities mechanically follow the UGC’S 2016 regulations. The UGC and the university should rethink them.

Three issues are at stake. First, the 2016 regulation requires clearing a written examination and an interview for entry to a PHD programme. This change was required because, in many universities, admissions to PHD were conducted in an arbitrary manner, often leaving it to the faculty’s willingness to supervise. Introduction of the written test and viva formalised the admission procedure. Recognising the university system’s diversity, though, the UGC left it to individual universities to apportion weightage to the written test and the viva. The JNU administration’s proposal involves one round of elimination at the written examination stage; the final selection would entirely be based on the performance in the interview. The faculty and students think this would go against the established weightage of 70 per cent for written and 30 per cent for viva. The proposal also comes at a time when there is demand for reducing the weightage of the viva to 10 per cent.

JNU’S formula of apportioning weightage has evolved over a period of time based on the university’s experience, much before the UGC’S 2016 regulation. From 1969 till early 1984, JNU used written and viva for Mphil, PHD, undergraduate and post-graduate programmes; weightage was also given to family income, the backwardness of the district from which the applicant hailed, gender, and to first generation learners. The university undertook a major exercise in 1984, which led to the viva and the income criterion being discontinued for undergraduate and