Three Afghan students urge JNU to ease PhD admission process

NEW DELHI: Three students from Afghanistan have written to the Jawaharlal Nehru University's vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar urging him to ease the process for Afghan students to get admission in PhD courses in the wake of the "deteriorating" situation in their country.

The three students completed their masters from the university this year. "It is to bring to your kind notice that we are three Afghan terminal students who have completed our masters in M.A course in 2021. Due to the recent developments in Afghanistan, we are stranded here and feel deeply concerned about our academic future and our stay in India. This comes at a time when our return to Afghanistan would be a threat to our lives," the letter read.

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The three students said they appeared for the JNU entrance exam for PhD programmes by paying a higher application fee. "Considering the fact that there is no quota for foreign students in PhD courses, this will inevitably affect the future of Afghan students who have given entrance exams, and will be deprived of seats who can't return to their country due to the unfolding situations in Afghanistan. This might highly affect our stay in India and could risk us being forced to Afghanistan if we are not given any seats under the foreign national category," the students said in the letter.

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According to the recent decision made by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Afghan terminal students who have completed their masters will be provided Ph.D. scholarships by ICCR if they can get admission from their respective universities, the students said. They also cited the case of other central and state universities across the country which have promoted their Afghan terminal students from Masters to Ph.D. programme in coordination with regional and central offices of ICCR.

"Due to the uncertain and deteriorating situation in the country and based on the humanitarian grounds, we sincerely request the Honourable Vice Chancellor of JNU to ease the process of getting admission in further processes by providing quota, cut-off or any possible way for Afghan students and conferring seats for them," the students added. An immediate reaction from the university was not available as calls and messages to the vice chancellor and Rector-I Chintamani Mahapatra remained unanswered.