Identifying the process of taking semester exam through social media as a ‘mockery’, it said that the solution is the starkest evidence of the decline in JNU’s culture of learning, following in the time of crisis.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) has written to President Ram Nath Kovind after the University administration decided to conduct end semester examinations of Masters, MPhil and PhD courses via WhatsApp and email. The decision was taken in view of the continuing students’ boycott in the university following a proposed fee hike.

Noting that the decision has made JNU ‘the laughingstock of academia’, JNUTA, in the letter to the President said, “It is shocking that the VC of an institute of higher learning could imagine reducing the evaluation system to something which would never be accepted as a credible exercise.”

Accusing the VC of destroying JNU’s reputation, the Teachers’ body wrote, “We keep learning that there are no limits to the kind of absurdities Prof Jagadesh Kumar can inflict on the university,” and accused him of asking the teachers to participate in the ‘travesty’, The Indian Express reported.

The decision to conduct exam via WhatsApp and email was taken in a meeting held on December 16, where the Vice-Chancellor of the varsity and Deans of various schools were present.

“The VC and even the teachers are bound by JNU Act, Statutes and Ordinances, Prof Jagadesh Kumar is asking us to join him in violating the provisions,” JNUTA noted. It is through these provisions the academic requirements of different courses and programmes in JNU as well as the evaluation process is decided.

According to JNUTA, the process of teaching and learning in JNU has become ‘one of the most significant casualties’ of VC Professor Jagadesh Kumar. Identifying the process of taking semester exam through social media as a ‘mockery’, it said that the solution is the starkest evidence of the decline in JNU’s culture of learning, in the time of crisis.

It further appealed to the President, who is also a Visitor of the University, to see that Kumar’s tenure as the VC and his continuation in office is also doing great damage to the president’s standing. The teacher’s body further appealed to the MHRD to act immediately to pacify the situation and ‘to abort destruction of a premier public institution’.