JNUSU writes to VC demanding revert to paper-based format for entrance exam

Students had to face difficulties at all stages of the entrance examination process right from the application process till the online test, claimed the letter signed by JNUSU president N Sai Balaji, and three other office-bearers of the union.

The JNU student union Monday said it has written to the Vice Chancellor of the university, urging him to initiate steps to revert to the previous paper-based format for conducting the institution's entrance examination. (Getty images)

New Delhi: The JNU student union Monday said it has written to the Vice Chancellor of the university, urging him to initiate steps to revert to the previous paper-based format for conducting the institution's entrance examination. In a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru University Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar, the JNUSU said, "It might have already come to your notice that from the time of the announcing of JNUEE to be conducted by NTA, there has been large-scale discrepancies and flaws." Students had to face difficulties at all stages of the entrance examination process right from the application process till the online test, claimed the letter signed by JNUSU president N Sai Balaji, and three other office-bearers of the union. "We are bringing to your attention two of the latest concerns -- paper leak and errors in answer key," the letter said. This is for the first time that the varsity has switched to computer-based mode of entrance exams that are being conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) across 122 cities in the country. The Jawaharlal Nehru University Entrance Examinations (JNUEE) and the Combined Entrance Examination for Biotechnology (CEEB) 2019 commenced from May 27 and went on till May 30. The examinations were conducted in 142 programmes of study in eight shifts. "The exam paper of BA 1st year cluster one of Russian, Spanish, French and German held on May 28, 2019 were found to be circulating on WhatsApp. Also, the BA paper that came was out of syllabus that was prescribed in the prospectus by JNU administration for students," the letter claimed. University officials could not be immediately reached for comments of the issue. The letter further alleged that the latest in the set of problems is wide scale errors in the answer key provided by the NTA. "It is extremely unfortunate and unprofessional that the answer key of all the subjects from BA to PhD had errors. Some questions itself were wrong," the letter claimed. "We demand the administration to immediately look into the concerns raised here. JNU's time-tested offline entrance system having a suitable mix of subjective and objective questions was an academically superior model designed to assess students on various parameters of comprehension, writing and analytical skills," the letter said. The JNU adminstration should immediately initiate steps to go back to the previous format of JNUEE, it said. Besides the president, the letter has been signed by JNUSU's Vice President Sarika Choudhary, General Secretary Aejaz Ahmad Rather and Joint Secretary Amutha Jayadeep.