JNU relents, goes back to old admission policy for MPhil, PhD

The steering committee for JNU admissions has finally decided to relent and revert to the old admission policy of giving weightage of 80 per cent for entrance exam and 20 per cent for viva voce for admission to MPhil and PhD programmes.

The steering committee for JNU admissions has finally decided to relent and revert to the old admission policy of giving weightage of 80 per cent for entrance exam and 20 per cent for viva voce for admission to MPhil and PhD programmes.

The steering committee for JNU admissions has finally decided to relent and revert to the old admission policy of giving weightage of 80 per cent for entrance exam and 20 per cent for viva voce for admission to MPhil and PhD programmes.

The university had last December approved amendments in the admission policy giving 100 per cent weightage to viva voce and reducing entrance examination as a mere qualifying criterion. The amendments had attracted protests and demonstrations from students.

“The admission policy would adhere to all constitutional provisions related to reservation system. There should be a three-tier entrance test consisting of a qualifying test where all students need to get 50% for moving on to the next stage of descriptive type written test and viva voce,” the university said in a statement.

“The ratio of weightage for descriptive type written test and viva voce should be 80:20. Legal opinion should be taken on applying reservation system at the first qualifying test where the qualifying marks are 50 per cent,” it added.

The statement also stated that “The main concerns of the students were related to the weightage given to written tests and viva voce; status of constitutional provisions on reservations given to the deprived sections of the society in the admission process; impact of the new UGC regulations on the deprivation points given to socially deprived sections of the society; difficulty that may arise because of introduction of research methodology as part of the qualifying entrance test; the policy to be adopted towards implementing UGC regulations regarding upper limits of scholars faculty can supervise; and the pattern of test that may be adopted for students applying directly for the university’s PhD programmes.”