JNUTA Opposes Directive on Special Centres

Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association (JNUTA) has come down heavily on a directive of the Vice- Chancellor Shantishree Pandit to appoint a committee to review the functioning of the special centres. 

A notice by the Academic Branch issued on 11 September, 2024 read, “The Vice Chancellor has constituted a committee for overall review of functioning of the Special Centres of the University including courses, syllabus, faculty strength, infrastructure, etc. The committee shall review the special centres of the university and submit its status report along with recommendations within one month.”

Moushumi Basu, President, JNUTA said on 18 September that it is as a direct assault on academic autonomy that will set a dangerous precedent for the institution as a whole. She added that Special Centres exist as per rules and procedures laid down by the JNU statutes and ordinances. The Special Centres have their own statutory equivalent of the Committee for Advanced Studies and Research (CASR) and Board of Studies (BOS). 

“All academic matters including courses and syllabi are approved by these statutory bodies and subsequently approved by the Academic Council. Neither the Academic Branch nor the Vice Chancellor have any statutory power to appoint a random committee to ‘review’ courses, syllabi and functioning of any special centre or for that matter any school or centre.”

In a statement, the teachers body said, “The creation of such a committee goes against the very statutory structure and spirit of the model of decentralised and democratic functioning that has been the hallmark of JNU, which has been responsible for Centres, Special Centres and Schools engaging in innovative pedagogy and design. The Special Centres in JNU were set up at various points of time in the last 24 years with the primary task of offering interdisciplinary cutting-edge research programmes. In addition, some of the Special Centres offer Masters courses and are in the process of developing interdisciplinary Masters programmes. All of these are through the established rule-based mechanisms deriving from the JNU Act, statutes and ordinances.”

It further added, “The review of courses and syllabus constitute an important part of the routine continuous academic activities of all Centres and is no different for Special Centres. It is a shame that the university administration under the garb of a review is now seeking to replace this tried and tested model of functioning by one that is not only antithetical to academic autonomy but is also yet another clear attempt at violating statutory processes and imposing from the top, attempts to control and censor research and teaching.”

Basu said, “The illegal imposition of a random committee that goes against the very statutes of the University and the laid down structures and procedures through which academic programmes are governed is nothing short of an attempt to replace the autonomy of Centres with a system of authoritarian control, which can only do severe damage to an educational institution such as JNU.”

Responding to these charges, Vice Chancellor Shantishree Pandit told NewsClick that the committee is an “Administrative audit for academic accountability. How is it not? Review of work done so far and the way forward. We are a public university and academic audit is must.”