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JNU Halves Academic Spending Over 3 Years, Students Pay The Price

Researchers in the premier university are struggling to access journals and attend seminars and workshops.
The cutback in subscriptions and research journals has hit students particularly hard, especially since most of them are home due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Hindustan Times via Getty Images
The cutback in subscriptions and research journals has hit students particularly hard, especially since most of them are home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) administration’s decision to cut back on academic spending over the past few years has had a major impact on the quality of their work, say students across disciplines.

On Tuesday, Hindustan Times’s Fareeha Iftikhar reported that the university has almost halved its academic expenses over the three years till FY20 to Rs19.74 crore. HuffPost India has also accessed a copy of the annual accounts for 2019-20, which has not been uploaded on JNU’s website until now.

Academic expenses include subscriptions to journals and publications, funding for seminars and workshops and other research programmes.

Pradeep Ranga, a PhD scholar at the School of Environmental Sciences in JNU, told HuffPost India over the phone that he has hardly been able to attend seminars, especially outside India, for some time now.

“The university barely gives any grants to attend conferences or seminars, which makes it hard for us to learn about new research and meet useful people,” he said.

Expenses on research activities, which includes spending on projects and teachers’ trips to workshops, has fallen 98% since FY18 to just Rs2.39 lakh in FY20 (the bulk of the cut happened last year).

While this has made it hard for students, especially from less privileged backgrounds, to network and make useful contacts, the financial crunch has been felt in other ways as well.

An MSc student in the School of Physical Sciences said that while he found the JNU laboratories to be well-equipped compared with Calcutta University, where he did his undergraduate degree, the equipment was “really old” and not maintained as well as it should be.

“A batch before us took almost a month to finish a microwave experiment because the equipment was temperamental and needed to be thumped a few times to work properly,” recalled the student, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The cutback in subscriptions and research journals has hit students particularly hard, especially since most of them are home due to the coronavirus pandemic and can’t physically access the library. Expenses on journals and publications reduced 72% from FY18 to Rs1.15 crore in FY20.

“The administration’s stand regarding journals has been nothing but insensitive,” said Hoimi, a third-year PhD student at the School of International Studies (SIS). The student, who said they have lost access to resources including Wiley and Springer, added that they have had multiple meetings with the administration to ask for an increase in subscriptions.

“I met repeatedly with a senior administrative official who, at one point, recited names of big state universities such as Jadavpur, saying ‘they are managing with just JSTOR without complaining’. The administration should realise that we can’t produce good results out of thin air,” she said.

At least two PhD scholars told HuffPost India on condition of anonymity that they were forced to turn to illegal websites such as LibGen and Sci-Hub in the absence of legal access to resources.

In a recent study conducted by 3 JNU students on how university researchers have been managing during the pandemic, 89% of respondents said that they found “none or only few of material relevant to their research in the JNU e-library”. A third-year PhD student quoted in the study had also requested that the university increase subscriptions to journals and books. The survey was conducted online between 27 June and 6 July among 530 JNU research scholars.

Hoimi also pointed out that SIS students have been particularly affected by the cut in grants for field trips, since their work requires visits to the countries they are specialising in.

“We have had to fund our own trips, which is not possible for everyone. Doing a PhD without primary research is not satisfactory as well,” she said.

The HT report adds that fellowships/stipends offered to students have been slashed from Rs18.22 crore in 2017-18 to Rs2.39 crore in 2019-20, and that there have been reports of these payments being delayed as well.

The study cited above also says that 66% of respondents have not received any money since the pandemic began, leaving them financially vulnerable.

Prof. Surajit Mazumar, general secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) backed up the students’ complaints about lack of resources, and pointed out the wider implications of the fund cuts.

“The entire effect of this can’t be seen immediately. In the long term, as the system adjusts to a lack of resources, academic expectations will also be adjusted accordingly. Soon, researchers will have no option but to cut corners in their work. As their supervisor, how much can I demand of them when the system does not offer support?” said Mazumdar, who teaches at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning.

Interestingly, the accounts show that security expenses dipped slightly from FY18 and FY19 to Rs15.34 crore in FY20. HuffPost India had reported in January that in 2017-18, security expenditure had jumped by 82% to Rs17.37 crore from Rs9.52 crore the previous year. While a senior university official told HT that the increase in security expenses was “for the safety of students and faculty members living at the campus”, HuffPost India had found that the number of security guards deployed on campus saw a drastic cut in 2019.

On January 5, students and teachers were attacked by a masked mob armed with iron rods, wooden batons and rocks, raising serious questions over the conduct and ability of the private security agency engaged to guard the campus. The Delhi Police is yet to make any arrests in the case.

JNUTA’s Mazumdar added that while security expenses have risen, students feel less safe on the campus now.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.