Letter to the DUTA President, 31 July 2024

Dear DUTA President,

It is really shocking that since the DUTA Elections concluded on 27.9.2023 more than 10 months back, this is the first time that the DUTA Executive is meeting to discuss long overdue pressing issues that the University community is plagued with. The only other meeting held on 12.02.2024 was solely on the issue of funding of 12 Delhi Government maintained colleges. This lackadaisical attitude of yours towards the DUTA has led to a serious erosion of its democratic functioning whereby the Executive is denied the opportunity to meet regularly. The 11 agenda items that you have listed for today’s meeting are itself revealing how the DUTA under your leadership has been reduced to a mere spectator while the administration has been given a free rein and the Government’s policies adversely affecting education and teachers have gone unchallenged. Further, by not identifying the agency to which each of these 11 issues /demands must be addressed is a deliberate attempt to create confusion and give a clean chit to the Government/ University administration.

Demands @ UGC and MoE

1. Counting of past services for each stage of promotion is a major issue affecting a large number of teachers who have recently become permanent after serving on temporary / ad-hoc basis for long years. The UGC Regulation 2018 restricts the benefit of past services to the first promotion (from 10 AL to 11 AL). The demand the counting of past services at every stage of promotion through an amendment of the UGC Regulations 2018 is an urgent task.

2. The Study Leave Clause 8.2 (iii) which stipulates that it can be granted to an entry level teacher after a minimum of three years of continuous service should be amended in the light of counting of past services.
3. Promotion scheme for Instructors needs to be urgently clinched.
4. Anomalies of the VII Pay Revision and CAS 2018 must be resolved immediately and the demand for inclusion of books, chapter in books, editing and translation for all promotions including Professorship needs to be taken up.
5. The DUTA led by you has shown a lack of willingness to fight against government policies including NPS. This unwillingness has resulted in a tragic irony. WhileOPS is on the agenda today, you did not care to join the pan-India protests being organised by the FEDCUTA-AIFUCTO or government employees, thereby weakening the demand.
6. The additional posts required for increased student intake due to EWS reservation and infrastructure and teaching requirement due to the introduction of the fourth year of UGCF have not come through. The DUTA has remained silent on these demands.
7. The NTA’s abject failure with scandals of paper leaks and inordinate delay in declaring results has exposed the inadequacies and vulnerability of the CUET to malpractices. The delay has derailed undergraduate admissions and the academic calendar in DU. It is incomprehensible that the DUTA leadership has been complicit in its absolute silence to the plight of students and teachers. We need to restore an admission policy which can be on the basis of normalisation of Board results so that autonomy of the University is not compromised.

The DUTA in the past has always played a stellar role of intervention in matters relating to Education as was the case when a large number of Education Bills were being pushed during UPA II. Governments too have recognised this and have invited the DUTA for feedback. It is unfortunate that while policies that aim to change the nature of public funded institutions are being pushed through without any debate or discussion, the DUTA under your leadership has withdrawn from playing the role it should to defend the interests of students and teachers. 

The NDTF which you represent has also been silent and has not dissented on any of the important policy matters including the grant of Category-I status to DU under the Graded Autonomy Scheme, which will push us towards greater self-financing, or the hefty loans taken by the University and many colleges from HEFA which has translated into an exponential increase of fees, or the severe erosion of academic quality and standards through the FYUP.

Issues@University

In line with this silence on your part, the NDTF AC and EC members have not dissented on any of the anti-teacher measures adopted by the University which include the following:

1. It is also important to ask how the leadership has reached the conclusion that there should not be any ad-hoc appointments against full-time posts. To confuse rampant ad-hocism with the need of short-term full-time recruitment is a deliberate attempt by NDTF to push Delhi University into an era of guestism – the worst kind of exploitative engagement. Appointment of guest faculty is a cumbersome process which affects the institution’s ability to meet teaching requirements for short term vacancies arising from leave or retirements. Full time vacancies should be filled through appointments of full-time teachers. Increase in guestism is detrimental for institutions as full-time teachers perform many other duties besides teaching.
2. NFS has been used as a tool to deny reservation and the DUTA should declare zero tolerance for NFS. Backlog and shortfall in reservation should be identified before the next round of appointments.
3. The silence of the DUTA on the arbitrary and selective extension of probation period and deliberate delays in processing promotion cases.
4. The change in promotion rules to insist on journals from Scopus list or UGC CARE are in deviation from the UGC Regulations 2018. Only 5 members dissented.
5. The New Workload Norms issued by the Shri Prakash Committee have gone unquestioned by the DUTA leadership and the elected members from the NDTF.
6. The DUTA leadership’s silence on the changes made in the method of recruitment in colleges through the SOP dated 3.6.2024 and its Notification of 20.7.2023 is telling. This adds another layer of “shortlisting’ of candidates for recruitment beyond the requirement stipulated by the UGC Regulations 2018. The Committee for this has same composition as the Selection Committee. It is an over centralisation of the process.
7. The EC members from the NDTF did not protest, neither did the DUTA leadership, when in the EC meeting of 8.12.2023, the recruitment process for Librarians and Physical Education was changed to demand written test (EC Resolution 44 and 45).
8. The restoration of the Retirement age of teachers of Physical Education must be immediately addressed. Illegal recoveries must stop. Like in the case of CPF to GPF, legal aid should be provided by the DUTA to help individual teachers fight for their rights.

UGC takeover of 12 DU Colleges

There are no serious visible efforts by the DU Vice Chancellor to resolve matters of governance and funding of the 12 Delhi Government maintained colleges. The DUTA leadership too has only paid lip service by calling one meeting of the Executive on 12.2.2024 which was followed by a few perfunctory protests. It perhaps served only as a political campaign in favour of the BJP in the midst of the General Elections.  Further, while the Delhi Government has been consistently delaying the release of funds on one grounds or another, the University in cohort with the BJP is responsible for not allowing regular Governing Bodies. Though truncated Governing Bodies, the University Administration seeks to have power over recruitments and regular governance matters. The DUTA should launch a sustained movement for a permanent solution with the UGC takeover of these Colleges.

As you can see, the mere listing of issues on the agenda do not show your serious intent to either find a resolution to these issues by intervention or through any sustained movement. For example, raising the demand for the benefit of past services at every stage of promotion with the University Administration is farcical as the matter can only be resolved by the MoE/ UGC. 

We urge you to take immediate action on all the above issues listed and mobilise teachers and students for a sustained movement.