There will be no seat cuts: JNU V-C

Students challenge the Vice-Chancellor’s claim, continue to occupy the Administration Block

Over 250 staff members of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) who work at the Administration Block on Monday had to sit at the JNU Convention Centre as students “occupied the Administration Block” and did not let the staff enter.

UGC Gazette Notification

The students have been sitting on protest both inside and outside the building since four days.

They have been demanding that Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar address their demands and offer an explanation about the new JNU admission policy according to the May 2016 UGC Gazette Notification. The students argue that the new policy will lead to seat cuts.

The V-C did not visit the Administration Block. Instead, Prof. Kumar sent senior representatives from the administration to meet the students. However, the students did not budge and continued their protest.

V-C talks to journalists

Speaking to journalists at the Convention Centre, Prof. Kumar said there will be no seat cuts in M.Phil./PhD programmes. He added that several faculty members have over 25 PhD students, while many others do not have even one PhD student.

The new admission policy, he claimed, will encourage faculty members to fill up the vacancies. Thus, once these vacancies are filled up, the university will have more students than the UGC Gazette Notification cap.

“Rumours”

“A small number of students are spreading rumours that there will be massive seat cuts. We have also gone for a special drive to add more faculty members to fill up nearly 90 vacant SC/ST posts. In the next six to eight months, we will try to fill up close to 300 faculty vacancies,” he said.

Coming down heavily on the protesting students, the V-C said the administration will continue to put sense into the small groups of “unruly” students by talking to them. However, he said, if that fails, law will take its course.

He added that the UGC had given in writing that it was mandatory to conduct admissions as per UGC regulations and that the new admission policy had been framed keeping in mind JNU’s socially-inclusive policy within the framework of the UGC regulations.

Reacting to the V-C’s statement, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) said the V-C and the administration were behaving in a “completely arbitrary” manner by bypassing all decision-making bodies, and were “threatening” everybody who questioned their style of functioning.

“The V-C, in his various tweets, refuses to tell teachers and students exactly how many students will be admitted under various programme in the upcoming academic semester. Instead, he is hiding behind some vague phrase of ‘dynamic’ seats, wherein seats will ostensibly be announced as and when teachers are available. In other words, the V-C is putting an end to the system of annual admissions to M.Phil./PhD programmes,” the JNUSU said in a statement.

“Massive seat cut”

The JNUSU added that as per the V-C rumours regarding seat cuts are being spread by few students. However, they added, the impending “massive seat cut” is not a figment of students’ or teachers’ imaginations.

Negative vacancies

JNUSU president Mohit Pandey said the V-C’s team had put up a list of “vacancies” and negative vacancies in various centres on the JNU website.

This list, which is still available on the website and has been issued by the JNU administration, makes it clear that there will be no admissions in JNU M.Phil/Ph.D programmes for some years as several “vacancies” are in the negative.