Why is Jamia Millia Islamia - the top Indian

Central University, still deciding to stay closed?

The holder of 6th position among the 'Top 10 Universities' of the country in the National
Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)-2021 and the first position among all central
universities in the country in rankings released by the ministry of education (2020), the delhi
based university still remains closed. For many it might be an unknown fact that the university
got shut down long before the pandemic set in due to the chaos of the Anti CAA-NRC protests.

So what was a year of online education to all of India, the Jamia campus had been shut down
since december of 2019 and had barely opened since then except for their odd semesters exam in

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Feb 2020. Soon after it had closed down on March 12,2020 due to the pandemic. The university
ran online throughout this course and had little to no consideration for students from J&K where
the 4G facilities were snapped and restored until very recently in Feb 2021.

Being a public funded university several students come from financially weaker backgrounds and
do not have access to digital education facilities. As stated by the majority of students in the
country that online education isn’t something they can take any longer, the recent openings of
educational institutes in India gave the students a ray of hope. With most of the colleges in Delhi
being opened up for final year UG, PG and Phd scholars, Jamia is still discussing its prospect of
opening.

The university students have started protesting outside the varsity campus on September 9, 2021
demanding that campus be opened for all and classes be resumed. A delegation of SIO JMI
leaders also gave a memorandum to the proctor, demanding resumption of offline classes and
opening of campus. The demand gained momentum online on September 14 where several
students took to Twitter to highlight concerns.

The university has been functioning in online mode since March 2020 and the students have been
complaining about the inefficiency of the university in it as well. According to an interview by a
student of the university, “The university has not released our results for 2 continuous semesters
now and even the entrance exams and results are being delayed. The Phd entrance exam of 2020
took place in 2021 and the admissions got wrapped up in August 2021. Even now the results of
the 2021 entrance exam are not out yet.”

According to a recent statement given by the vice chancellor JMI, the university is not going to
open for the UG or PG students and is only allowing final year Phd students and PG students of
science background for practical related works. They are next going to discuss the reopening of
the campus on october 31st 2021, the alleged time for the rise of a 3rd covid peak in the country.
Assuming that happens, the university will thus be completing a two year anniversary of total
shut down in december 2021.