JNUSU To Go On Indefinite Hunger Strike Against Anti- Student Policies

At least ten students including members of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) have announced an indefinite hunger strike to protest against the varsity’s “anti-student” admission policies.

Last week, the university announced the schedule for its first-ever online entrance examination to be conducted by the National Testing Agency for various courses.

Raising strong objections to the online entrance tests, JNUSU said that the “time-tested method of conducting JNU entrance exam assessing the different aspects of a student’s potential for learning and research has been replaced without any academic reasoning.” It also said that the decision was taken by “illegally keeping the JNUSU out of the academic council meetings” and that the teaching community was also opposed to the move.

The students’ body also accused the administration of arbitrarily doing away with the BA lateral entry programme which allowed students a chance to enter JNU from other universities. “This despite the fact that the SLL&CS Board of Studies had categorically rejected the proposal,” it said.

Another point of contention included the delinking of M.Phil-PhD programme. “The move will adversely affect the continuity of a research that a student conducts and also unnecessarily burden the students to take multiple exams at the MPhil and PhD level, instead of focussing on research,” JNUSU said.

However, the administration said that the decision would help students who could “enrol for PhD programme directly after MA or MSc and can submit their theses in four years.” It also added that “the decision on such reforms were the result of serious deliberations and their adoption in statutory bodies, such as the Academic Council and the Executive Council in the university.”

(Source: HT Education)