IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, July 28: A students’ body on Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking order for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to withdraw its decision suspending National Eligibility Test (NET) due in July.
In its petition, Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) has expressed concern that if CBSE doesn’t conduct the due NET exam, many students who are crossing the age limit will lose the opportunity to appear.
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 rescheduled it for 19th November 2017.
The CBSE decision has created outrage among the aspiring students as most of the students who have been preparing for the July exam will have to wait till November and thousands of them will lose the opportunity to reappear due to crossing the age limit as per notification.
“CBSE has betrayed the students community in conducting NET 2017 session. The report on the suspension of NET has created qualms in students’ community. Thousands of aspirants, who are waiting for NET notification, are shocked now after seeing the latest updates that CBSE is suspending the July 2017 session. CBSE should take back its stand in favour of lakhs of students, it’s a direct attack on the students, teaching profession and intellectual growth of the nation,” Adv. Manoj Gorkela said while briefing the media outside the Supreme Court of India on Friday.
Adv. Gorkela appeared in the court on behalf of SIO.
Last month, students from different universities had held a protest outside the office of University Grants Commission (UGC) in New Delhi, demanding the restoration of the previous biannual pattern of NET.
Currently, thousands of teaching positions are vacant in various universities and colleges across the country. Recently, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had said in Parliament that teaching vacancies in universities would be filled up this year. So, scrapping UGC NET will not just create jeopardy for students but will also increase faculty crunch in the academic institutions.
