Responding to ongoing protests on campus by the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) and the JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) with regard to the compulsory attendance rule, the varsity administration has released a message to the entire community seeking cooperation and threatening action against those found breaking university rules.
The administration said it is committed to make quantitative and qualitative improvements in the all-round functioning of the university and that the issue of attendance was discussed in the last Academic Council meeting and a decision was taken to make attendance compulsory in all academic programmes.
Attendance committee
“As decided in the same Academic Council meeting, a committee was set up to devise the mechanism for implementing it. On the basis of the recommendations of this attendance committee, the administration has communicated to the relevant stakeholders through circulars to maintain records of students’ attendance,” it said, refuting allegations from the community that there had been no discussion on the issue and that it had been an order from the Vice-Chancellor.
The administration clarified that it has had several rounds of discussions with the Deans as well as Chairpersons for smooth implementation of the attendance policy and that the Vice-Chancellor has discussed this attendance issue with JNUSU representatives and other students to clarify certain issues.
The university pointed out that some students who have not only been non-compliant of the attendance rules were preventing fellow students to attend classes by calling for strikes, blockading the entrance to the school buildings, staging marches, holding meetings at class hours and blocking the main road of the university for days together. It said that such actions had caused enormous hardship and difficulties for the elderly, sick, schoolchildren and visitors to the campus and threatened that it would take action against such protesters them as per university rules.
In violation
In its message, the university told students who were involved in a protest demonstration on Saturday that they were in violation of the High Court’s decision prohibiting any kind of protests within 100 metres of the administrative building.
The students had stayed away from conducting protests within 100 metres of the administration block but on Saturday had claimed that they had “reclaimed” “freedom square” with a strength of over 2,500 students who were protesting against the attendance rule.
The students were protesting a circular threatening students with stopping of fellowships/scholarships, withdrawal of hostel seats and debarring them from sitting for exams or registering for the next semester if they failed to have minimum attendance.
