Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 30 July 2018 | Page 16
CAMPUS HOWLS
SANDIPAN CHATTERJEE
CRY, FREEDOM Jadavpur
University students raise
a hail of slogans
Stop The Dam Busters
A push to garble Jadavpur University’s admission process fails; fingers point at TMC
by Dola Mitra in Calcutta
T
HE fiery protests were soaked,
but not doused, in the driving
rain. Ostensibly, the campus agi-
tation that erupted at Calcutta’s
Jadavpur University on the after-
noon of July 4 and continued to
simmer unabated thr
ough the next
couple of weeks—all through torrential
rains in the monsoon-wrapped city—
was a student-teacher revolt against an
arb
itrary decision by the institute’s
governing body, the executive council
(EC). The EC had announced that start-
ing this year it would scrap the practice
of holding entrance tests for admis-
sions to six of the undergraduate cour
ses of the university’s arts programmes,
going back on their decision taken in
late June, which promised to stick with
the established practice.
It meant that the only basis for getting
16 OUTLOOK 30 July 2018
admission in these departments—English,
comparative literature, history, philoso-
phy, and international relations—would
be marks obtained in the 12th-standard
final examinations. Incensed by the deci-
sion that would, it was deemed, inevitably
lower standards and erode JU’s reputa-
tion as a centre of excellence across India,
students and professors descended on the
campus, protesting what one professor
calls the “complete disrespect for the
university’s high standards”.
“These tests are prepared by professors
in each department and it has been the
only way to ensure that the most deserv-
ing candidates are admitted from the
thousands of applications,” explains an
English department professor. He adds,
“Final examinations conducted by differ-
ent boards have different standards of
marking and a student from one board
who has scored high marks is not neces-
sarily qualified to compete with students
of another board with equal marks, bec
ause the latter may have taken part in a
more challenging examination of a board
with higher academic standards. Marks
cannot be the only yardstick for judging
merit.” University sources say the depart-
ment of English relies 100 per cent on
entrance test marks, while in interna-
tional relations and history departments,
admission test scores and 12th grade
marks are given equal weightage.
During the protests, students gheraoed
the vice chancellor, Suranjan Das, holding
him up in his office for hours, demanding
a retraction. Signature campaigns sup-
ported not just by students and professors
but also former professors and alumni
were sent to various authorities. Eventu
ally, a group of students took recourse to a
hunger-strike, during which two fell ill
and had to be admitted to hospital.
Yet, why jettison a system that, in the
end, redounds to the credit of the var-