JNUSU holds ‘referendum’ over PhD admission exam

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) on Monday held a “referendum” to determine whether students would prefer an internal test over the National Eligbility Test (NET) scores for PhD admissions at the university. The “referendum” comes amid lack of clarity over whether NET scores would be considered for PhD admissions, particularly in three centres — the Centre for Korean Studies (CKS), Centre For Informal Sector And Labour Studies (CISLS) and School of Arts and Aesthetics (SAA).

According to the JNUSU, out of 664 voters, 655 (98.64%) voted in favour of conducting the internal test JNUEE for these three centres in the current cycle. The union said in a statement that the office bearers had met with the Deputy Registrar who told them that the committee had denied PhD admissions via JNUEE for the three centres.

Moushumi Basu, JNUTA President said, “The administration had considered conducting JNUEE for PhD entrances, but that was for next year. These three centres had written to the Vice-Chancellor stating that NET cannot accurately test knowledge in the subjects, and the administration had heard them out but then there was no movement regarding the same.”

Meanwhile, students said that these subjects cannot be tested via NET as some do not have NET equivalents and some require practical and subjective knowledge which cannot be tested via MCQs. NET currently covers 85 subjects.

Krishnapriya A., a PhD scholar at SAA said, “Subjects such as dance, visual arts and theatre are more focused on practical and knowledge of these subjects cannot be tested via MCQs.” Dipanjan Mandal, the convener for the School of Social Sciences (SSS), which offers the CISLS programme, said that NET has MCQs whereas the internal test conducted by JNU would have subjective questions. Meanwhile, NET does not have Korean as a separate subject, pointed out students.

For the past three years, the National Testing Agency (NTA) conducted a computer-based test for PhD admissions. Earlier this year, JNU said that they would accept NET scores instead of its own entrance test. When the NTA had come under the scanner for alleged discrepancies, and delays in conducting exams, the proposal to return to an internal test from the next year had been floated but students and professors said that the proposal had gone to “cold storage”.

Published - December 16, 2024 11:51 pm IST