The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) on Friday demanded a “genuine and feasible plan to restore and align” the institution’s academic calendar, calling the immense pressure on students and faculty to finish the coursework in a shorter duration “sheer academic dishonesty”.
Staging a protest on campus, the teachers also sought that the JNU administration revert to conducting its own entrance examination instead of using the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores to admit students.
According to the JNUTA, the administration last month directed that classes for the first semester of the MA programme, which started in mid-September, end a month earlier by mid-December to coincide with those for the third semester. The October 31 notification states that classes for “new students admitted in 2023-24 will be accommodated within the broader framework of the Academic Calendar for Monsoon 2023” by taking “extra classes on Saturday/Sunday”.
While the administration has stated that the calendar was disrupted due to COVID-19, the teachers said the situation prevails even after the pandemic is over.
“To call this ‘teaching and learning’ is nothing short of a travesty. It is simply a cover-up for the utter administrative failure which produced the mess by forcing admissions on JNU through CUET,” the JNUTA said.
Admissions to many MA courses are still being held and those for PhD programmes are yet to take place, the teachers said.
They added that JNU always had a stable calendar which ensured that the twin requirements of adequate time available to complete courses and results being declared on time were met, allowing both faculty and students to plan their research and other activities well in advance.
