Jadavpur varsity students threaten hunger strike over admission furore
KOLKATA: Jadavpur University (JU) students protesting against the state government’s decision to do away with entrance tests for admissions to the humanities department on Friday threatened to sit on a fast unto death if the varsity did not resolve the issue by Saturday.
The agitating students of English, Comparative Literature and other departments of the arts faculty said they would start their hunger strike if the varsity authorities did not fulfil their demand.
Earlier in the day, (JU) vicechancellor Suranjan Das offered to resign amid the an ongoing row.
During a meeting with gover- nor Kesari Nath Tripathi, who is also the chancellor of JU, Das offered to tender his resignation but was asked not to take any hasty decision, the official quoted above said on the condition of anonymity.
The meeting took place after Das met state education minister Partha Chatterjee. Speculations were rife that the government may engage an external agency to conduct the admission process.
“The governor sought a detailed report from the vicechancellor on the sequence of events and wanted to know why the agitation by students and protest by teachers, took such a turn,” the official quoted earlier in the story said.
He said Tripathi wanted to know why the decision to con- duct entrance tests was withdrawn after making an official announcement following which admit cards were issued to around 17,000 applicants.
After being gheraoed in his office for about 30 hours, Das came out of the campus on Friday and went to Chatterjee’s residence.
Chatterjee did not take calls from the media, nor did he reply to text messages. To avoid reporters who had gathered outside the minister’s south Kolkata residence, Das left through the back door.
Students of the arts faculty are agitating for the last two days, saying doing away with admission tests would severely damage the standard of JU which is one of the premier universities in the country.
Teachers of the universities comparative literature department expressed solidarity with the students and said they would stay away from the admission process.
“We will teach the students, set question papers and evaluate them yet we will not have any say in the admission process. This cannot happen. We have decided to keep away from the admission process,” said Sucharita Chattopadhyay, professor of comparative literature.
Last week, the state’s education minister said there cannot be two sets of rules in one education system and hence, admission on the basis of marks secured in board examination should be the uniform criteria everywhere.