‘General’ students fail to make the cut for media course at Jamia

While the University Grants Commission (UGC) has repeatedly tried to encourage filling up of reserved quotas for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) students in universities,a section of students in Jamia Millia Islamia allege they have a problem quite the opposite: too many SC/ST candidates and very few in the general category.

The university,on the other hand,says applicants from the general category did not make the cut,and the quality of applications was not good enough to draw more than 16 candidates as against the advertised number of seats at 56.

There are three other general category students in the exempted list — applicants who already have M.Phil degrees or have passed National (NET) or State Eligibility Test (SET) are not required to take the entrance examinations made mandatory by the UGC last year to improve the quality of the PhD students. Outraged students,however,criticised the university’s selection criteria. They claimed though the university advertised 56 seats in the PhD programme,the centre has taken in only 16 students.

The university,which set up a team of senior professors to look into the allegations,refuted the charges. According to Jamia,it was fulfilling the constitutional mandate by giving admissions to SC/ST applicants,who get a relaxation in the minimum qualifying marks for admissions.

The inquiry committee spent close to three hours checking the lists and matching them with the criteria and found nothing amiss,said university officials.

According to officials,only those general category applicants who made the cut,or got the qualifying marks,were offered admission.

“By constitutional mandate,we are required to give seats to SC/ST candidates. SC/ST students met the criteria,” Jamia Registrar Prof S M Sajid told Newsline. “Only one student from the general category got 50 per cent.”

Last May,the UGC made entrance exams mandatory for PhD applicants after the Mungekar Committee report highlighted malpractices in the process of getting PhD degrees,and how the quality of students in PhD programmes across universities was poor.

Now,besides an entrance exam,students will also have to face an interview where they will be required to discuss their research area. While central universities had set basic standards for PhD aspirants,many state and deemed universities had no such standards.

Prof Sajid said Jamia wanted to use the entrance examinations to ensure quality. “If only 16 students could make it,it wasn’t a case of favoritism or bias,” he said. “It was an instance of only the deserving candidates making it to the programme.”

For SC and ST candidates,for whom a reservation of 15 and 7.5 per cent respectively exists,there is also a relaxation in the minimum qualifying marks for admissions. So,nine SC/ST candidates were able to get in the programme,Prof Sajid said.

But the university said its system erred in assigning quotas to candidates and when candidates presented documents supporting their claims of being an SC/ST student — or a former Jamia student as in the case of Amit Chawla — the mistake was rectified. At least in three instances the students’ names appeared in the list of those who appeared in the examinations under the general category,while their names appeared in SC/ST category in the final list.

Again,in the case of one student (Dilip Kumar) whose name appeared in the general category in the initial list,in the final selection list the name appeared with students who were exempted from taking the entrance examination. In the fifth instance of such a system error,a general category student’s name was moved to the Jamia reservation quota in the final selection list.

The lists are all on the university’s web site:www.jmi.nic.in. Prof Sajid said: “We are working on it. It’s our first year and we are trying to fill in the loopholes.”

The admission debate
* Students says Jamia advertised for 56 seats in PhD programme at Jamia’s AJK Mass Communication Research Centre
* University enrolled 16
* 8 exempted from taking entrance exams: 5 SC/ST candidates made the cut
* 8 others took entrance exam: 7 SC/ST candidates admitted