Students alleged that Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and UGC are silently scuttling of Social Justice
Ghazanfar Abbas, IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, June 16: The notification of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) scrapping the prescheduled exam of National Eligibility Test (NET) due in July has led to an outrage among the aspiring students. Holding a protest demonstration outside the office of University Grants Commission (UGC) here on Thursday, students from different universities demanded restoration of the previous biannual pattern of NET.
NET was conducted twice a year by CBSE for the aspirants to make them eligible for posts of Assistant Professors and Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) to pursue research (PhD) in various colleges and universities. But through its 6th June notification, CBSE has announced to hold NET once in a year and thus scraped the July exam and scheduled it for 19th November 2017.
Besides, CBSE has reduced the number of qualifying students from 15% to 6%. Till the last NET exam conducted in January 2017, separate lists of candidates based on their categories and subjects were prepared and top 15% of the eligible students were issued NET qualification certificate.
Students are also doubtful as to how the reservation policy and the provision for relaxation in eligibility for SC/ST, OBC and PH/VH students would be applicable with this restriction of 6%.
The new policy has restricted the scope of lacs of candidates and research fellowship by drastically reducing the cap.
Students alleged that Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and UGC are silently scuttling of Social Justice. All India Students Association (AISA) said that this is nothing but an attempt to impose a fellowship cut in higher education in a surreptitious manner.
“It is extremely unfortunate that the UGC after releasing press statements has withdrawn from accountability,” it said in a statement.
The sudden scrapping of July NET exam is shocking for the students as earlier after a protest by AISA in April, UGC had released a press statement saying that the CBSE had been asked to conduct NET exam in July 2017.
AISA’s national President, Sucheta De said: “The notification of 6th June is a clear backstabbing by the Government. The UGC in April said that it will conduct the NET as usual at most two weeks later than the usual but now it has come up with the notification which skips the July NET. This is a yet another attack on the students aspiring for higher education of India. On one hand the UGC in a notification dated 2nd June stated that one must have NET in order to get enrolled into PhD in Category 3 universities which constitute major chunk of the colleges/universities in our country. Given this, the 6% cap and scuttling of biannual exam will gravely scuttle the opportunities for the students trying for teaching professional or aspiring to pursue higher education.”
