Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has issued an official notice clarifying the University’s stand on the JNUEE 2021 and CUCET 2021. Earlier this week, the University made it to the headlines with the decision to conduct their own entrance examination i.e. JNUEE for admission to courses in 2021. In this context, it may be noted that the decision came in while talks are already underway for conducting the Central University Common Entrance Test (CUCET) for admission to all the 54 Central Universities including JNU.
As per reports, JNU has decided to stick to the existing admission entrance test i.e. JNUEE till the Ministry of Education waves a green flag to the final modalities of CUCET. Reportedly, a seven member Committee was formed earlier to decide on the modalities of the CUCET exam. Once a final decision is taken the National Testing Agency is expected to conduct the exam. Now, JNU has published the latest notice to clarify the main outcomes of the Academic Council meeting held on March 22, 2021 (see image below).
The official notice reads “The Academic Council has resolved to conduct the JNU entrance examination 2020-2021 as per schedule in collaboration with the National Testing Agency (NTA)”. This is because the final decision regarding CUCET is pending. CUCET is being devised with the aim to ensure that students seeking admission to Central Universities on the basis of merit (cut-offs) have a common platform for evaluation of merit. In the recent past, certain institutions have set their admission cut-offs to as high as 100%. As such, even those students, who secured reasonably high score in their Board exams were denied admission unless they achieved 100% marks.
The notice also goes on to read “The Council also resolved that whenever the Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET) is conducted by the NTA for all the Central Universities, JNU would accordingly adopt and admit students through CUCET”. This decision is synonymous with that of DU which will reportedly conduct admissions on the basis of CUCET & Class 12 Board score in a 50-50 marks weightage distribution pattern once the final decision on CUCET is made.
Among other clarifications made through the official notice, the Academic Council has approved the recognition to Arun Jaitley National Institute of Financial and Management (AJNIFM) to award PGDM (Finance/Financial Management). The Academic Council has also decided to start a new Master of Arts program in Hindi Translation in the Centre of Indian Languages, School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies. JNU has also rejected malicious propaganda being spread by certain members of the faculty. The University has clarified that there are no other nomenclature apart from Vice Chancellor, as opposed to Caretaker VC/Officiating VC etc. being spread by such members.
