The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) has launched a protest campaign asking students from across the country to send postcards or social media messages to Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar asking him to do away with the new entrance examination policy of the university.
Passed by the Academic Council, the JNU entrance exam will now be conducted online with multiple-choice questions (MCQ). The infrastructure needed for conducting this examination will be provided by private vendors.
Issue of glitches
The JNUSU has said the shift to the online mode is a “scam in the making” as students have already faced glitches in online examinations held for the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and Delhi University.
“An online entrance examination for JNU raises very serious questions of social justice. The biggest irony is that in a country where the majority lives without proper electrification, the administration is expecting computer literacy to clear exams to public universities. With no discussion at any level within the university with students or teachers, the online exam formula was approved,” the JNUSU said in its appeal.
The union also questioned the V-C’s insistence on a private company conducting the exam, violating JNU’s time-tested and robust mechanism of holding a written entrance exam.
“Who will take responsibility in case of malpractices? The answer keys have to be submitted months before the entrance exam [October 22, 2018], which only raises more suspicions,” said JNUSU president N. Sai Balaji.
He added that there was also no clarity on the exact structure and syllabus on the online MCQ entrance exam.
“Is the JNU administration not playing with the future of thousands of applicants,” he asked.
The JNUSU said the MCQ format trivialises comprehensive evaluation, that should include analytical and writing skills that are very necessary in a research university like JNU.
Debarred from meeting
The union said it was systematically debarred from participating in the AC meetings, where the decision to introduce the online format was passed.
“Such an important policy level change was bulldozed without any consultations with students and teachers, who are the main stakeholders in the university and who will be directly impacted,” it said.
The union claimed the administration was refusing to notify the JNUSU, which was elected in September, because it did not want to recognise the mandate of the students and was therefore creating hurdles like insistence on “GST bills” for poll expenditure when most shops in and around the university were not big enough to provide GST bills.
Most efficient process
The university administration had termed as “baseless” the allegations by the JNUSU on the online entrance exam format. It asked all stakeholders to introspection on the “benefits” of the system.
The administration said it had adopted the online entrance examination format after following a completely democratic process as per the guidelines and statutes of the university and that it was “the most efficient process of objective evaluation”.
