Blocking at the Entrance:Need of Reform
in Viva-voce Examination of JNU
Nitheesh Narayanan
Mphil Scholar
JNU
Heated debates and discussions are going on in JNU on
the reduction of marks in the Viva-voce of the M.phil
entrance examination for a few years. A committee
has been formed to look into the merit of the matter
at the demand of students’ union to reduce the marks
from 30 to 15. Since the committee has not submitted
its final report, the last academic council meeting,
where the decisions regarding any academic reform
will be taken, has decided to hold a special academic
council meeting only to discuss this matter before
the end of ongoing semester. This special meeting
is scheduled to be held on 23rd of December. It is
unprecedented and can be seen as an exhibition of the
intensity the matter has gained. Students are raising
some other demands also related to the Viva-voce
along with the reduction of the marks, such as proper
division of marks, permitting SFC (student-faculty
committee) members to sit in the Viva as observers,
ensure SC/ST/OBC faculties in the Viva board etc.
This is an attempt to see the way discrimination takes
place in JNU with referring to a particular case.
Reaching at the stage of higher education itself is a
struggle for the marginalized groups in India. Various
kinds of discrimination and different forms of
obstacles await them in every stage. What happens if
they make to higher education system will also expose
some other stories of caste based discrimination. This
article focus on how discrimination attains its space in
the process of ‘entrance’ itself. A lot has already been
said about how caste plays a regressive role prior to it
and also after to it.
What is Viva-voce?
Viva-voce is an examination in interview form as
part of the entrance examination to the research
programmes in JNU. It consists of 30% of the total
marks of the entrance examination. Only those
who satisfy the eligibility criteria in the written
examination will be called for Viva-voce. The same
faculties who prepared the question paper for the
written examination is more or less the same group
which consists Viva panel. The final result of the
students selected for admission will be prepared by
compiling both written and Viva marks.
All the empirical data, related to Viva-voce, used
for this article are received through different RTI
applications filled in Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Theyyam 32