Kolkata: West Bengal governor and chancellor of Jadavpur University, Kesari Nath Tripathi finally intervened in the fortnight-long impasse at the institution and said that the decision of the university authorities on whether or not to conduct admission tests would be final and binding.
Authorities convened a meeting of the university’s executive council at 2 pm on Tuesday to decide on the matter.
Protesting students have, however, refused to call off their hunger strike. Despite reports of deteriorating health conditions of some of the fasting students coming in, the students maintained that their agitation would continue till their demand for holding admission tests with no external intervention is met.
Meanwhile, the All Bengal University Teachers’ Association (ABUTA) on Monday blamed the State education minister Partha Chatterjee for the current crisis in JU.
Speaking to News18, ABUTA President Tarun Kanti Naskar said, “For the last few months, the education Minister raised questions on several occasions about entrance tests for aspiring candidates in undergraduate Arts courses JU. We believe that vice-chancellor Suranjan Das took the decision to engage ‘external experts’ to set one of the two sets of question papers for the entrance tests in six undergraduate arts courses under pressure.”
Naskar added, “We believe that the decision to scrap entrance tests for this year’s academic session was also taken by our V-C under pressure from the minister. We oppose the interference of the state in the academic affairs of the University because the previous system of having entrance tests for admission was flawless and there was not a single complaint so far. We believe that the minister is responsible for this crisis.”
Earlier, today the V-C met the agitating students and urged them to call off their hunger strike while maintaining that his job was to implement the orders of the executive council.
“As long as, I am in V-C's chair, I don’t have a choice but to go by the decision taken at the EC meeting. I personally feel that my personal opinion does not matter here. EC’s decision is the last word but I do have the interest of students in mind,” he told the students.
A three-member team of the Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association (JUTA) met governor Tripathi at Raj Bhawan on Monday afternoon. The teachers, reportedly, voiced their concerns and advocated for the need to continue with the existing procedure of admission tests while seeking his intervention to end the stalemate.
Assistant secretary of JUTA and a teacher with the Physics department, Dr. Partha Pratim Ray, said, “We submitted a memorandum to the governor and appraised him about the current situation within the JU campus. We told him that one out of 20 students on hunger strike needs to be admitted in hospital following sharp deterioration in her health condition.”
Recently the EC reversed its earlier decision of holding admission tests by appointing ‘external experts’ to set one of the two sets of question papers for tests in six UG Arts courses – English, Comparative Literature, History, Political Science, Philosophy and Bangla – and decided to do away with it.
The move was interpreted by a section of students and teachers of the institution as an attack on its autonomy.
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