JNUTA opposes weekend classes, shorter breaks, says it violates UGC guidelines

NEW DELHI: Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association (JNUTA) warned the JNU administration against infringing the rights of JNU faculty and opposed the suggestion made by senior officials to schedule extra classes on Saturdays and shortening the winter vacations to make up for the lost time due to the delayed announcement of the CUET UG results 2024.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which is in the spotlight owing to the UGC NET, NEET paper leak allegations, on July 14 announced that it will hold a CUET retest for over 1,000 candidates. It had earlier said that the CUET results will be declared in the second week of July, however, there is no clarity on the CUET result date in the latest notification.

On the delay in admission process, the teachers group said: “Instead of raising questions on the inefficiency of the CUET process, the JNU administration in its interviews to the press, seems unperturbed about the repercussions on the university’s academic calendar and inclined rather to push the burden of a shortened semester on the faculty. This is simply unacceptable.”

“From a time when the dates for the university vacations were sacrosanct (summer 8 weeks and winter 4 weeks), faculty have witnessed not only a reduction in the overall period but also arbitrary decisions about the length and timing of the vacations. The inefficiency of NTA that has led to delays in admissions has led to curtailing of both semester time and vacation time,” it said.

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Violation of UGC guidelines

The JNU administration on Monday said that instead of five-days a week, the university is planning to teach six days a week and utilize Saturdays. “We will also consider shortening the winter break if need be. JNU had planned to release an unified academic calendar for all the batches from this year onwards to bring symmetry in the admission process,” the officials said.

The move will lead to loss of research and writing time for teachers and affect students “as they are being subjected to fulfilling criterion for their respective degrees in shortened semesters violating the UGC guidelines on what should be the duration of the semester”.

“Thus the UGC and the JNU administration together are not only violating UGC regulations on teaching and learning standards but also infringing on the basic rights of both students and teachers,” the JNUTA said in a statement.

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Compensatory earned leave

The teachers further highlighted that they have not yet received compensatory earned leave for work done by them during COVID-19 pandemic and foregoing vacations. “Recently, the salary for the month of June 2024 saw a huge deduction being made for all faculty citing a demand by the Ministry for return of transport allowance paid during Covid,” it alleged.

The teachers said that they “were forced” to start online classes and conduct exams and viva voce using their own personal setups, without any infrastructural or financial support from JNU.