The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) on Monday demanded that the university should withdraw from the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for all the courses as admission to none of the university’s programmes has taken place this year so far. The teachers highlighted the waste of teaching hours due to the delay in conducting CUET, at a press conference in the Capital.
“The most immediate cause of this colossal waste of educational resources is the unthinking, chaotic and irresponsible ‘one nation, one exam’ policy embodied by CUET. The delays in the completion of CUET have disrupted the academic calendar of all participating Central universities and thus far none of them has been able to initiate admissions to its undergraduate and postgraduate programmes,” the JNUTA said.
It added that the very idea of a “one-size-fits-all” entrance examination entails the erosion of university autonomy and an evisceration of the University Acts under which public institutions like JNU were set up, and the only way forward is to “opt out of the CUET”.
The teachers’ body said it is unlikely that JNU will have any admission of PhD scholars this year as the NTA has reneged on its undertaking to 20 Central universities, including JNU, that it would conduct a PhD-CUET, and has asked universities to make their own arrangements.
“JNU has not initiated any of the required statutory processes to discuss and determine the modalities of securing its PhD admissions. In all likelihood, none of the 83 PhD programmes in JNU will have students this year. All 11 schools/special centres, which only have a PhD programme, will not get to teach this year at all,” the JNUTA said.
