JNU sticks to its guns on compulsory attendance

Proposed scheme poorly conceived: teachers’ association

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) administration on Thursday refused to go back on its decision to introduce compulsory attendance for all registered students at the university.

Classroom attendance

The administration said it was decided in a meeting of all the Deans of the School and Chairpersons of the Special Centre with all the Rectors that the “decision of the statutory bodies with respect to the attendance system will be adhered to by all concerned”.

All schools and centres have been asked to take classroom attendance. For students in research courses who have finished coursework, an attendance register will be kept in the school or centre office to be signed daily by the scholar.

Reacting, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association said there was no generalised problem of absenteeism, and that if an individual case or two crop up from time to time, teachers use the rules already available to tackle them.

‘Ludicrous’

The association pointed out that the proposed scheme of attendance records was poorly conceived, and the proposal that research students be required to sign in daily and take advance permission if they want to even go to a library just outside the campus gate was “ludicrous”.

“Teachers do not share the presupposition that students only work from 9 to 5, or that being enrolled in an MPhil or a PhD requires a total suspension of daily life and leisure,” said the JNUTA

“If JNU administration’s insistence on attendance records continue, the situation may become one in which even though students are present, classes are not held. By what imagination can this be considered good administration of a university?” said the JNUTA, asking Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar to withdraw the scheme at once.