Uncertainty amid seat cuts

A university stands for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for the adventure of ideas and for the search of truth,” Jawaharlal Nehru is quoted as saying in the official website of the university named after him.

The vision behind the setting up of the university, which can be clearly ascertained by going through the parliamentary debates held prior to the passing of the JNU Bill in 1966, involved creating an institution that offered the highest level of research and academic opportunities to students from all over the country and from every tier of the socio-economic structure.

“The one thing the university should ensure was to keep noble ideas in mind and provide accessibility to students from weaker sections of society,” JNU’s mission statement says.

However, the university has decided — based on a UGC notification — that for the upcoming academic year, over 85 per cent seats to M.Phil. and Ph.D. programmes would be cut. This translates to almost no admissions in many of the university’s major departments, while some others will admit no more than one or two.

Deprivation points, which the university had used on top of mandatory reservation policies to encourage students from the most economically and socially backward regions of the country to apply there, has been done away with.

According to a UGC notification on May 5, 2016, a professor cannot supervise more than three M.Phil. students and eight Ph.D. students at the same time.

Associate professors can guide no more than two M.Phil. students and six Ph.D. students. For assistant professors, the numbers are one and four, respectively.

Many teachers in JNU, though, supervise a lot more scholars than what is allowed by the UGC. So adopting the notification would mean JNU would have to cut more than 85 per cent seats in research programmes, and that is exactly what the university has done.

More than the idea of regulation itself, the way it is being implemented in JNU, without taking into consideration the special characteristics of the university, is where the problem lies, according to those who oppose the implementation of the UGC notification.

JNU is one of the best known universities in the country and is regularly regarded as the top destination for research students, especially for those studying the social sciences.

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council has given it the highest accreditation score for a university. It also has one of the best student-teacher ratios among universities in India.

The number of scholars that a teacher supervises used to be decided by the faculty councils of the departments themselves, while the Academic Council did set the admission criteria and numbers.

“Different schools and centres would follow different policies that were formulated, taking into consideration the specificities of the subjects taught. A one-size-fits-all system doesn’t work,” says professor A.K. Ramakrishnan of the School of International Studies.

“What is at stake is the dream of hundreds of students to have an affordable and quality education. The very ideas of social justice and diversity and the notion of academic autonomy of the university are being challenged now,” says Prof. Ramakrishnan.

Teachers of many centres will not be able to teach courses in the core areas of their specialisation as there will be no admission to many of them.

The hardest-hit will, of course, be those who were aspiring to do a research programme at JNU. The university conducts entrance exams in 53 centres across the 29 states and Union Territories of India, and one outside the country. While its stature and reputation made it an attractive proposition to most students, its policies in encouraging people from underdeveloped regions to get admission made it a realisable goal to hundreds of young adults from all over India.

But, this time, they won’t get in. With nearly no admissions in most centres, reservation doesn’t even come into the picture.  It’s also a gloomy state of affairs for the many M.A. students in the university who were planning on doing their higher studies here. Many of the centres where they are doing their M.A. have no seats for M.Phil. or Ph.D.

Sandeep Kumar, an M.A. student, says, “Many of us are afraid that we might have to look to do further studies in other universities, but I’m sure none of those places will be as convenient and cheap to live in as JNU campus. It’s difficult to even get hostels elsewhere.”

“JNU is more than just a place of learning. It’s a space that’s open, free and safe for women, and so it’s a place where research can really flourish,” says Ananya Alok, who did her M.A. from JNU, went on to do her M.Phil. from Delhi University and was looking to come back to JNU to do her Ph.D. from the Centre for Comparative Politics.

“There were no seats for direct Ph.D. in the centre at all, and so I can’t come back to study at the place I most wanted to be at,” Ms Alok said.

The JNU administration and vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar has maintained that the university is simply implementing the UGC notification.

“There are close to 800 universities and all have adopted it (the notification). JNU cannot differ because we get funding from same source, which is UGC,” Mr Kumar had said.

Union human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar also defended the decision in Parliament. But, while there is quite a wide consensus that ways of improving teaching can always be looked into, it is the manner and haste with which the administration is affecting changes that is worrying to many.

“The JNU administration’s determination to dismantle first, and think later, deals a blow to democracy, and all institutions of higher learning,” wrote Janaki Nair, who teaches at the Centre for Historical Studies, in an article for the Indian Express.

Ever since the university adopted the UGC notification, students and teachers have organised many protests. Some students also moved court against the decision.

While a single-judge bench of the Delhi high court had thrown out the plea against the new admission policies, the court on April 17 sent notices to the university to respond to a challenge against the order of the one-judge bench.

The HC has asked JNU to file its response through an affidavit before April 28.