Compulsory attendance: international students write to V-C

The International Students’ Association of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has written to Vice Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar rejecting the compulsory attendance system and showing support to the boycott of the new system called for by JNU Students’ Union and JNU Teachers’ Association.

‘Bureaucratic process’

The association said, “As an association, we embrace active participation in university academic life. However, we fundamentally disagree that the new attendance policy contributes to this aim. Indeed, we are concerned that the attendance policy favours bureaucratic process over ensuring the actual conditions required to produce excellent scholarship.”

They pointed out that the policy falsely equates physical presence in the centre with academic excellence, an equation they find is “fallacious”, as they feel that JNU students are consistently engaged in classroom activities and student researchers have a record of producing world-class scholarship under the current flexible-attendance policy.

“We believe this new policy is a grave affront to the autonomy of students of this campus, who are adult student scholars engaged in an earnest pursuit of our academic interests with the right to make decisions of how best to facilitate our intellectual and social lives,” they added.

They said the new policy was in clear discord with best global practices followed by eminent research universities around the world.