Jawaharlal Nehru University

Jawaharlal Nehru University is the foremost university in India, and a world-renowned centre for teaching and research. Ranked number one in India by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) with a Grade Point of 3.91 (on a scale of 4), JNU was ranked no 3 among all universities in India by the National Institutional Ranking Framework, Government of India, in 2016 and no 2 in 2017. JNU also received the Best University Award from the President of India in 2017.

JNU was the first to offer courses in foreign languges in an integrated five year MA programme. At the Master’s level, where most of the Schools begin their academic programme, training is largely oriented towards single disciplines (although all M.A. students are encouraged to do a few courses outside their subject) but at the research level the disciplinary boundaries become more permeable. Work in overlapping or borderline areas – e.g., between environment and literary studies, economics and science, sociology and aesthetics, or linguistics and biology – is not uncommon among the Ph. D. students of JNU. Not only are the research scholars encouraged to cross the invisible walls around disciplines, the relationship between the academia and the world outside also remains negotiable, often resulting in mutually beneficial collaboration in areas that form crossroads for developing an understanding of society, culture and science.

As in the academic structure, so in its teaching process and evaluation pattern, JNU was one of the first in India to depart from the well- trodden path by emphasizing the continuity of the learning process rather than isolatiing the final exam as the only tool of measuring achievement. Grading is done throughout the semester, ensuring students’ participation and involvement in curricular work, and re-animating the collaborative process of generating knowledge in the class room. Even at the M.A. level, students are encouraged to carry out independent research projects in limited areas which result in short term paper. 

Jawaharlal Nehru University has collaborated with universities across the world in research projects, conferences, and publications. It has many active MoUs with international and national universities and exvhanges faculty and students with them regularly. We also host the Indian segment of some international degree programmes.

Several academic Centres of the university have been declared by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to be ‘Centres of Excellence’. JNU itself has been given the status of the ‘University of Excellence’ by the UGC.