In a Win for Students, Jadavpur University Restores Entrance Exam

The students are waiting for an official statement from the university before calling off the protest.

File image of Jadavpur University protests.

(Photo: PTI)

The students of Jadavpur University were finally granted their demand for an entrance exam on Tuesday, 10 July, as the university decided to go back to its previous admission process.

After weeks of relentless protests and five days of hunger strike by the students, the university bowed down to their demands – to provide equal importance to Class 12 marks and entrance exams, reported News18.

However, the students are still waiting for an official statement from the university and hence, are not willing to call off the protest. The decision, whether the entrance exams of the six Arts Faculty departments will be conducted by internal teachers or “external” faculty members is yet to be finalised.

On Tuesday, five out of the 20 students who were on an indefinite hunger strike were hospitalised due to their deteriorated health conditions.

In a press statement, the university said, “In order to overcome the present state of deadlock prevailing on campus, this EC meeting took the resolutions that in six departments of the Arts Faculty (viz. Bengali, Comparative Literature, English, History, International Relations & Philosophy) admission to the UG Course will be on the basis of 50% weightage on an admission test and 50% weightage on the marks obtained in the 12th Board Exams,” reported News18.

On Tuesday, the authorities made a fresh appeal to the students to withdraw the stir and called an emergency executive council meeting.

Accompanying the Registrar, Pro-VC Pradip Ghosh told the students, “I request all of you to withdraw the fast. We have already convened an emergency executive council meet to discuss the admission issue. The VC (Suranjan Das) and Chancellor (Keshari Nath Tripathi) have already requested you to withdraw the fast. Please do not endanger your lives.”

However, general secretary of Arts Faculty Students' Union Debraj Debnath turned down their requests, saying:

There is no question of withdrawing our fast till the EC scraps the marks only criteria for admission process and brings back the admission process.

Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, who is also the chancellor of the university, expressed his concern over the health of the students. The Vice Chancellor Suranjan Das had also urged the agitating students to call off their hunger strike.

Two days after the university announced its decision of admitting undergraduate students in English, comparative literature, Bengali, history, political science and philosophy on the basis of marks achieved in the board marks, reversing its earlier decision to hold entrance tests, around 20 members of the AFSU went on an indefinite hunger strike from 6 July.

(With inputs from News18 and PTI.)