JNU’s MPhil, PhD seats to go up to 720 from 102

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) said on Thursday that the intake for the MPhil/PhD programmes the next academic session would be 720, significantly higher than the previous year’s 102.

The entrance tests for the programmes will be held between December 27 and 30 this year at various centres, officials confirmed.

According to a 2016 University Grants Commission (UGC) notification, a research supervisor/co-supervisor who is a professor, cannot guide more than three MPhil and eight PhD scholars. An associate professor as research supervisor can guide up to a maximum of two MPhil and six PhD scholars and an assistant professor can guide up to a maximum of one MPhil and four PhD scholars.

Due to the implementation of UGC 2016 regulation there had been massive seat cuts in MPhil/PhD programmes at JNU, sparking protests among the students.

The seats had been cut by about 86% for the academic session, bringing the number of seats down from 970 to 102. There were also certain political science centres, history centres, Centre for Indian Languages and several science schools where there were no seats advertised for the last academic session.

This seat cut was also one of the major issues that candidates of the JNU Students Union (JNUSU) polls had brought up during their campaign, and the winning panel had said it would be one of the first issues they tackle after getting elected.

The number of MPhil/ PhD seats has now increased by over six times, from 102 to 720.

“The intake for various MPhil/PhD programmes of the university has been calculated as per the UGC regulations, 2016. This year, the intake for MPhil/PhD has considerably increased with 720 seats open for admission in the forthcoming academic session,” read a statement released by the university.

The university has also said that there will be 459 undergraduate seats for the BA programmes, and 1,118 post graduate seats for programmes such as MA, MSc, MTech. There are also 240 part time diploma and certificate courses seats up for grabs.

However, the newly elected president of the JNUSU, Geeta Kumari, said that there still was no clarity on how the seat increase would happen. “We have just been given a number, 720. We still do not know which centres would have how many seats,” she said.

The UGC notification had also adversely affected the deprivation point, which were extra points given to women candidates and other disadvantaged groups and reservation. “There is no clarity on how this would be impacted either,” Kumari added.