Jawaharlal Nehru University
Young at thirty years,
as universities go, what has lent strength and energy to Jawaharlal Nehru
University is the vision that ideas are a field for adventure, experimentation
and unceasing quest and diversity of opinions its chief premise. In the early
1970s, when JNU opened its doors to teachers and students, frontier disciplines
and new perspectives on old disciplines were brought to the Indian university
system. The excellent teacher-student ratio at 1:10, a mode of instruction which
encouraged students to explore their own creativity instead of reproducing
received knowledge, and an exclusively internal evaluation were a new experiment
on the Indian academic landscape; these have stood the test of time. The very Nehru Ian
objectives embedded in the founding of the University, national integration,
social justice, secularism, the democratic way of life, international
understanding and scientific approach to the problems of society had
built into it constant and energetic endeavor to renew knowledge through
self-questioning.
The JNU campus is a
microcosm of the Indian nation, drawing students from every nook and corner of
the country and from every group and stratum of society. To make sure that this
is so, annual admission tests are simultaneously held at 37 centers spread
across the length and breadth of the country, and special care is taken to draw
students from the underprivileged castes and ethic groups by reserving 22.5 per
cent of seats for them. Overseas students form some 10 percent of the annual intake. Students'
hostels and blocks of faculty residences are interspersed with one another,
underlining the vision of a large Indian family.
Even as class room teaching and, work in the library
and the laboratories have their share in the mode of instruction, personal
interaction between students and teachers and among students themselves form an
extremely important and lively medium of generation and transmission of
knowledge. Sometimes high decibel disputes about the validity of theoretical
premises or cultural substructures of a particular scientific or economic thesis
do spill over from the class and hostel rooms onto the middle of the campus
roads, at times causing traffic bottlenecks. Happily, these have never caused a
road accident! The annual Students Union elections are conducted entirely by
students. Fierce poster and cartoon wars, verbal duels and competitive yet
peaceful group meetings are a viewers' delight during the elections. Violence is
the only alien on the campus.
Several Centers in these Schools have been declared by
the UGC to be Centers of 'Excellence'. These are Center for Historical Studies, Center
for the Study of Social Systems, Center for Political Studies, Center for
Economic Studies and Planning, Center for the Study of Regional Development, all
in the School of Social Sciences. In addition three Science Schools--School of
Physical Sciences, School of Life Sciences and School of Environmental Sciences
have also received the UGC recognition as Centers for Excellence.
JNU is a member of International Association of
Universities. The web site of the association is http://www.unesco.org/
the activities of them can be found on the internet site . JNU is also
member of the association of Universities in developing Commonwealth countries
and the site is http://www.acu.ac.uk/ . From
the point of view of JNU, some of the specific areas of interest in social
science are: Sustainable development, Environmental protection, Modernization,
Culture: Domination and resistance, Human rights and Terrorism. The areas of
interest in applied sciences would be Bio-engineering, computer tutoring Systems
for teaching and machine-aided Translated Systems. The identification of these
and other areas in future would depend upon corresponding interest in
participating universities
3.
UNIVERSITY
OF INCHON, KOREA
4.
HANKUK UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDIES, KOREA
5.
SCHOOL
OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
6.
UNIVERSITY
OF NORTH CAROLINA, USA
7.
UNIVERSITY
OF SALZBURG, Austria
8.
TANI UNIVERSITY, JAPAN
9.
TANI UNIVERSITY, JAPAN
10.
INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
OF KYRGHYSTAN
11.
UNIVERSITY OF
ILLINOIS, USA
School
of Information Technology
The
School of Information Technology would bring us to the forefront of the most
modern way of dissemination of knowledge. IT facilities are already available at
three locales on the Campus. These will constitute the nucleus of a very large
programme which will create, impart training, and use IT networks to establish interlinkages
first within JNU, then within the city’s institutions, and finally worldwide.
The plan is to turn JNU into a virtual university thus providing and opening
access to the academic resources world wide.
The School of Language,
Literature and Culture
Studies
In major modern European
languages French, German, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Persian and
Arabic-the school offers under graduate, post-graduate and research programmes focusing
on languages, Literatures, translation, interpretation and culture studies.
