Foreign students will get admission to PhD if seats are vacant after being offered to Indian students: JNU

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Sunday said foreign students can get admission to PhD courses only if seats are left vacant after being offered to Indian candidates who have appeared for the varsity's entrance exam. The statement comes days after three students from Afghanistan had written to JNU's Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar, urging him to ease the process for Afghan students to get admission to PhD courses in the wake of the "deteriorating" situation in their country.

Every year, the university conducts entrance examinations for admission into various academic programmes and the admission policy is devised as per the UGC guidelines and the union government's rules related to the reservation of seats for different categories. Separate merit lists are prepared for candidates belonging to the general category, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Economically Weaker Sections and PWD category and also in respect of foreign nationals for each programme of study, as per the university.

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"The admission of foreign students for PhD programmes is considered in compliance with UGC 2016 Regulations, regarding the number of research scholars faculty members can supervise. Foreign students are offered PhD admission only if seats are left vacant in any discipline after being offered to Indian candidates who have appeared in the JNU entrance exam," the statement read.

The National Testing Agency conducts Computer-Based Tests (CBT) for admission into its academic programmes. Schools and special centres of JNU conduct the viva voce tests wherever applicable, it said.

The final selection of candidates for admission to various programmes of study is made “on the basis of merit of candidates in their respective categories based on their performance in the CBT and viva voce (wherever prescribed),” it said.

Significantly, PhD admissions at JNU are based on the 2016 University Grants Commission gazette notification and the number of seats in each category are fixed and announced well in advance in the prospectus, the statement said. The number of PhD seats is based on available vacancies with each faculty member and available research resources as well.

JNU has no authority to create supernumerary PhD positions while supernumerary positions are possible in non-PhD programmes, the university said. "As per the admission policy of the university, JNU allocates five per cent supernumerary seats for widows/wards of Armed Forces Personnel killed/disabled in action or during peace time for admission to university programmes." 

"These supernumerary seats are earmarked for UG/PG/Part-time programmes, but not in BTech, MSc (Biotechnology), MSc (Computational and Integrative Sciences), MBA and PhD programmes," the varsity said.