JNUSU referendum on attendance row

New Delhi: The JNU students’ union on Saturday said that it will hold a referendum on the university administration’s compulsory education directive on March 7.

“JNUSU appeals to students to vote this time in the referendum on Wednesday March 7,” JNUSU (Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union) president Geeta Kumari said.

The administration had recently issued a circular making 75 per cent attendance mandatory for availing scholarships, fellowships, and other facilities including hostel in the university.

The decision has sparked protests by the students. The officials had said compulsory attendance initiative will improve academic excellence despite the fact that the JNU administration received A++ ranking by NAAC last year.

A group of JNU research scholars claimed that they have initiated a survey on compulsory attendance policy within the university on how the initiative would help improve academic excellence as claimed by the administration. The questionnaire, which is restricted to JNU students, is already in circulation and a student with an e-mail ID can participate in it only once, they said. The questions include how serious absenteeism was on campus for different courses and how does attendance contribute to academic excellence.

Another JNU students collective claimed to have conducted a similar survey among students of foreign universities on compulsory attendance.

The response from the students showed that none of them had centralised compulsory attendance at MPhil/PhD level and students from prominent universities like Duke University and Oxford University expressed disagreement with the JNU system, they said.

Students from around 15 foreign universities including London School of Economics, South Asian University, Oxford and Columbia University took part in the survey, the collective claimed.