DU: Teachers’ Careers ‘Butchered’ as Administration Watched in Silence, Say Former DUTA Presidents Ahead of PM’s Visit

Five former presidents of the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA), in a letter to Vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh, said that the administration did not react proactively when long-serving teachers were displaced in ongoing interviews for teaching positions “even when a teacher ended his life” in Hindu College.

Former presidents were invited on Friday afternoon for an interactive session later in the day – ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit on June 30.The letter signed by MMP Singh, Amar Deo Sharma, Nandita Narain, Saswati Majumdar, and Rajib Ray was sent in the evening following the invitation. It stated that many colleges have lost more than 90% of their most experienced and outstanding teachers, which has “adversely affected their academic functioning and compromised the interests of their students”.

It read, “Overall, the displacement, we are told, has been more than 75%. The heart-wrenching suicide of a long-serving ad hoc teacher in a prestigious college has been one of the fallouts of this ongoing tragedy. Experts sent by the University administration, mostly from outside Delhi University, and often the same set for various colleges, have played a leading role in this vandalisation of our University.”

It added, “The University has belatedly announced a set of Guidelines whereby teaching experience and other qualifications can be factored into the selection instead of giving 100% weightage to the interview alone. Whether this will help in the regularisation of the remaining long-serving ad-hoc and temporary teachers is yet to be seen, but the damage to a large number of colleges has already been done.”

The letter maintained that the situation further deteriorated after colleges stopped hiring ad-hoc teachers on verbal orders.

Referring to the latest changes in the syllabi of different departments, the letter said, “The autonomy of Departments and Committees of Courses in syllabi-making must be respected. The recent attempts to compel Departments to drop or add papers, topics or reading material that the Department does not consider academically viable is unfortunate. Oversight Committees should not override statutory bodies. Best practices such as democratic consultation with the wide body of teachers must be preserved and encouraged if Delhi University is to retain and enhance its academic excellence.”

The philosophy department has reacted sharply to the suggestion of dropping a paper on Ambedkar in post-graduate courses. Economics teachers too had protested against the dropping of papers like Economics of Discrimination among others.

The teachers also lambasted the use of the official spaces of the university to felicitate functionaries of right-wing organisations. The statement added, “The repeated use of official spaces to promote sectarian politico-ideological organisations is unfortunate. Providing an official platform to representatives of organisations such as RSS and VHP as Chief Guests/Guests of Honour is unprecedented and unfortunate. It compromises the character of Delhi University, that in its hundred-year-long proud history, has remained politically neutral and upheld the values enshrined in our Constitution.”

The ex-presidents said that the university’s hasty decisions of implementing the Central University Entrance Test (CUET) and Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) have deeply affected students from marginalised communities including women.

They said, “The switch to admissions solely on the basis of the CUET has been counter-productive. It has devalued school education, promoted coaching mafia, and filtered out students from rural, urban poor and marginalized backgrounds who are not comfortable with computerised tests and cannot afford expensive coaching. Students from different parts of India are under-represented as the CUET syllabus is based on NCERT and disadvantageous to students from State Boards.”

They emphasised that there is a substantial reduction in the proportion of girl/women students admitted, probably because of the unequal access to coaching. This lack of regional diversity and gender imbalance “will adversely affect the holistic education that is one of the strengths of a Central University”.

The letter added, “The hasty introduction of the Four Year Undergraduate Programme without even having the syllabi in place has created much confusion for students and teachers alike. The reduction of the credits for the main discipline has compromised the academic coherence of the Honours Programme, and the reduction of the number of lectures per week from 5 to 3 without reducing course content has jeopardized the teaching-learning process. Increase in size of tutorial/practical group from 10 to 30/25 has deprived students of the much-needed individual attention required for academic comprehension and growth.”