University doesn’t have admission policy, says JNUTA

Academic Council meeting to decide policy on May 9

The JNUTA has called for a General Body meeting at its office on Friday to discuss the strategy to be adopted at the May 9 meeting. File Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

Ahead of the 143rd Academic Council meeting of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, scheduled to be held on May 9, the JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) has appealed to the faculty to ensure it’s a “free, peaceful, and extensive discussion”.

‘Conducive setting’

The JNUTA also hoped that the university administration “would create a conducive setting for the discussion by holding the Academic Council meeting in a committee room where everyone has access to a microphone and is seated as peers”.

The JNUTA added that the university currently doesn’t have an admission policy, since nothing that has been currently implemented has the approval of an Academic Council meeting.

“The meeting may now discuss all matters related to intake and admission policy, format of the entrance test, weightage assigned to viva and also all issues relating to implementation/harmonisation of the JNU Statutes and Ordinances, reservation policies [including the CEI Act] with the 2016 UGC regulations,” said the association.

The JNUTA has said that the meeting is perhaps the most important AC meeting in the history of JNU, following an unprecedented and widely opposed reduction in admissions to the university’s M.Phil / M.Tech / Ph.D programmes.

December meeting

It added that the Academic Council is the only academic body empowered to take decisions on admission policy and that it must take steps to right the “wrong” done in the previous meeting held in December 2016.

To discuss the strategy to be adopted at the May 9 meeting, the JNUTA has called for a general body meeting on Friday at its office.