No More Integrated MPhil and PhD Programme at JNU

According to a Facebook post by Simone Zoya, the Vice President of JNUSU, the JNU Admin on December 13th informed students appearing for the JNU Entrance Examination 2018-19 that they would be delinking the integrated MPhil and PhD programme. The Exam is scheduled to held towards the end of the month. The Exam would thus be held only for the MPhil programme and upon completing their MPhil they would have to apply afresh for the PhD programme. This information was given in the Admit Card issued to them. This ‘information’ violates the Prospectus of JNU and is in contravention of JNU’s statutory provisions on decision making. This decision was made on the basis of a Standing Committee meeting held on 5th December 2017. The members were not informed of the meeting’s agenda and many did not participate as it was called at short notice.

The post mentioned that “we have already seen the forceful imposition of the 5 May 2016 UGC notification led to massively cut research seats in 2017 18 admissions, bypassing the overwhelming opposition against the move in the Academic Council (AC) of the university. This newest anti-student decision of De-linking the integrated M.Phil PhD was even not at all discussed in the AC. Nevertheless, from the time the administration even surreptitiously tried to float this policy level change, JNUSU strongly opposed this.”

The JNUTA has in response come out with a statement on the Administration’s communication on the Admit Card that candidates appearing for the Entrance Exam “will be considered for the M.Phil programme only and the M.Phil programme will be a terminal degree programme” . The JNUTA response was “this patently illegal declaration is another reflection of the farce to which the current JNU Administration has reduced JNU’s admission process and the academic programmes fed by it.”

The statement went on to mention that “the Academic Council did not actually take any such decision; rather it was the Vice-Chancellor who announced that he would be setting up a committee to look into a proposal made by the Rector I, which was not endorsed by any other member of the AC. It should also be noted that there was NO discussion or even unilateral announcement w.r.t. delinking the M.Phil and Ph.D programmes for the ongoing admissions for the A.Y. 2018-19.”

The JNUTA demanded that the announcement be withdrawn and warned that “failure to do so might even result in the entrance examination process for 2018-19 having to be repeated.”