No external agencies to be involved in admission tests: JU

A day after its decision to reintroduce admission tests in six undergraduate courses, the Jadavpur University on Wednesday said the admission will be conducted by the varsity itself and no external agencies will be involved in the process.

"No external agencies will be involved in the admission test process. There would be no outsourcing. The admission will be conducted by the Jadavpur University," Registrar Chiranjib Bhattacharjee said after the admission committee meeting.

However, he refused to reveal further details about the evaluation process, saying these things should be kept confidential.

"The process of setting the question papers or the evaluation process should always be kept confidential. We think that neither the aspiring students nor the press should no who is setting the question papers or what would be the evaluation process," he said.

The Executive Council (EC) had previously questioned the involvement of Jadavpur University professors in the admission tests and said the respective departments should not have any role in the admission procedure.

Putting an end to the impasse surrounding the scrapping of entrance examinations in six humanities subjects, the Executive Council on Tuesday decided to admit students in the six UG courses in the humanities stream, by giving equal weightage to both admission test and marks obtained in the plus two board examination.

The decision came five days after a section of students went on an indefinite hunger strike demanding the admission tests be reintroduced.

Members of the Arts Faculty Students' Union, who are spearheading the agitation by students, withdrew the hunger strike after Tuesday's decision but said they would resort to democratic protests if the institution's autonomy comes under attack.

However, Vice Chancellor Suranjan Das and Pro Vice Chancellor Pradip Ghosh put it on record that they were not party to the resolution that was carried by majority and said they would meet West Bengal Governor K.N. Tripathi - the ex-officio Chancellor - and seek that they be relieved of their posts.

--IANS

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