Students demands are unacceptable, says JNU VC Jagadesh Kumar
The VC also warned that if students continue to remain adamant and disrupt the functioning of university then he will be forced to take “appropriate action”.
Jawaharlal Nehru University vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar on Monday said the demands of agitating students are “unacceptable” as every university has to adopt the 2016 UGC gazette putting a cap on number of students a faculty can guide.
Students have been sitting in protest at the administrative building since Thursday and are demanding that the VC meets them to discuss their concern over seat cut in the university due to adoption of the UGC rules.
“Students are adamant that we should not consider the 2016 UGC gazette. This is totally unacceptable. Because there are close to 800 universities and all have adopted it. JNU cannot differ because we get funding from same source, which is UGC,” Kumar said on Monday.
The VC also warned that if students continue to remain adamant and disrupt the functioning of university then he will be forced to take “appropriate action”.
“Let me tell you very firmly that law of the land will take its course. Preventing government official from doing their duty and occupying a government building is a criminal offence. We do not want our students to indulge in criminal offence and face the consequences,” he said.
The VC said admission to MPhil and PhD prorgammes will depend on vacancies. As per the UGC gazette, a professor can guide 8 PhD students and 3 MPhil students while an associate professor can guide 6 and 2 students, and an assistant professor can guide 4 and 1 students, respectively.
“PhD students can enrol only if there are vacancies. It is not a right that every student who is studying MA or MPhil will get into PhD. It is linked to the vacancies and that is linked to faculty number,” he said.
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JNU students’ union said the university has an integrated MPhil/PhD and promotion to PhD or second year of MPhil is based on grades scored in previous semester.
“In no way can the JNU administration alter this criterion and bring in supervisor-scholar ratio as conditionality,” said JNUSU general secretary Satarupa.
On the issue of already registered students, the VC said, “After you adopt the UGC gazette there will be a transition period…one or two year. We will do everything possible so that interest of students already registered is protected.”
The VC said “a small section of students” are spreading the “rumour” that there is going to be a large seat cut. “It is totally unfound,” he said.
