New Delhi: The University Grants Commission wrote a letter directing all the central universities to consider “rationalizing” courses, which are offered based on the “demand of students” and the number of students attending the course.
A section of teachers at Delhi University, including the DU’s academic and executive council members, however, fear that this will mean the erasure of departments teaching Indian languages.
UGC in its letter to the registrars of all central universities addressed that some departments in the central universities were started without any assessment of the number of students interested in such courses.
Talreja, Undersecretary, University Grants Commission, wrote the letter and sent it to the higher educational institutes on December 28.
However, the UGC's direction did not go well with a section of executive council members of Delhi University, who have raised their concerns stating that the university’s academic decisions are now taken by the “integrated finance division of ministry” as opposed to the university's executive and academic councils.
If the directives of the education ministry are implemented, it will push the central universities to close several courses which do not have a high number of students' enrolment.
As per the UGC letter, Earlier in May 2020, the department of higher education had fixed certain rules and norms to begin a department in central universities within the initial five years of their existence.
The department of higher education (DHE) in their note no 9-23/2017IFD dated 26.05.2020 had fixed norms for the number of departments that can be opened in the university in their initial five years considering the number of students expected to give the department, the letter said.
The UGC letter instructs the universities to “rationalize” the departments with the number of students and teaching staff aligned with the number of students.
However, a section of DU teachers protested saying that the move could lead to the closure of a number of courses, and degree programmes in Indian languages, which are already at the stage of risk.
A letter was written by the executive council and academic council along with members of the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) to the DUTA president demanding immediate action on January 4.
According to the reports, the executive council's letter said that the UGC's letter will deepen the existential crisis for new emerging areas, pure academic disciplines and Indian languages and the dominance of the market will take away the social justice concerns from the university system.
A total of five DU-affiliated colleges closed the Urdu departments in recent years.
Condemning the letter, DU’s Democratic Teacher Front highlighted the “farcical propaganda ” of the union government of promoting languages in National Education Policy or NEP 2020.
According to the statement, the government's vision should vary from choices students make due to the pressures of job prospects. The UGC's direction will see small language and some social science departments being closed across universities and colleges, which will also bring a loss of jobs for teachers and scholars and truncate the growth of research in these areas.
Further, the commission's instructions will weaken these subjects at the school level too. The “rationalisation”, will create a burden on ad-hoc teachers in DU and such a move is unacceptable in the varsity as a total of 4,500 teachers have been working on an ad-hoc basis for many years. Absorption as per correct roster must be immediately implemented as it's of utmost importance, the statement said
Last year in February, the Ministry proposed similar rationalism for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
A council of IITs, headed by then Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, had suggested cutting down the number of teaching staff to a lower number in the IITs as they were facing a shortage of faculty, especially with respect to the teachers from the reserved category.
Recently, DU has allocated a total of INR 10 crore as a fund for its centenary celebrations which are scheduled to start from May 01, 2022, on the campus ground. The year-long celebration event will be concluded on May 01, 2023.
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