JNU Stirs Fresh Wrath Reducing Students Intake for MPhil and PhD

In another eventful occurrence at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a fresh announcement has been made by the college on the seats allocated for the batch of the upcoming year. JNU has cut down the student intake for MPhil and PhD courses and scrapped fresh admission in some departments.

There is a possibility that this move might again kindle student protests as some students claim that proper permission was not taken from the statutory bodies to downsize the students' admission. However, the university officials claim that the student intake has been altered within the prescribed norms.

The School of Social Sciences (SSS) has reduced 232 seats, followed by School of International Studies (SIS) 141 and School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies 73, according to the new announcement. Currently, SSS has 330, that of SIS 232 and School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies is 227.

There will not be any new admissions into Centre for African Studies, Centre for East African Studies, Centre for Indo-Pacific Studies, Centre for the Study of Discrimination and Exclusion, and Centre for Media Studies.

There are other JNU departments which have reduced the seats. They are Centre for European Studies (6), Centre for Inner Asian Studies (13), Centre for International Legal Studies (7), Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (37), Centre for West Asian Studies (11), Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies (35), Centre for Arabic Studies (24), Centre for English Studies (13) and Centre for Indian Languages (49).

Sucheta De, President, All India Students Association (AISA) has also criticised the move."Students may or may not be admitted in a year. According to this formula, students will have to be admitted so that the API (Academic Performance Index) criteria for teachers are fulfilled and nd there is no need to create vacancies for teachers now," she said.

A senior university official who did not wish to be named said, "The calculations have been carefully done by the evaluation department and any reduction or increase in the intake has been done within the prescribed norms."

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