All is Well?

A call to save DU, students and teachers!

Where to start?

Let’s begin with the minimum expectation from the DUTA leadership – to defend its members and their dignity. The increased assault on teachers – first in BRAC, then in the Law Faculty, and then in MLN-E – has exposed the current DUTA leadership as complicit with the authorities to protect the culprits. The callousness with which the NDTF leadership has tackled these cases of direct physical assault on teachers has made them fend for themselves with no security.

The Hindu College Staff Association, along with students, has been protesting for six weeks against the show-cause notices issued to three teachers: since the Staff Association has courageously exposed over-admissions in the sports quota. Instead of an inquiry to investigate violations of admission rules and the total lack of transparency, the whistleblowers have been targeted. The DUTA leadership’s total abdication on the matter has further infuriated the struggling teachers.

The assault on teachers’ service conditions has received a similarly lukewarm response. Probation periods of teachers in several colleges, including HRC, SOL and SBSC-E, have been extended and promotions are pending in colleges including HRC and DSC. Show-cause notices have become the norm for the teachers in SOL.

NEP ka Swad!
4Cs: Centralisation, Commercialisation, Capturing and Corporatisation

With massive academic restructuring already in place – UGCF, followed by PGCF – 2-year and 1-year, teachers have realised that they are no longer part of policy-making. To make matters worse, the attack on the autonomy of Departments is led by the elected members of the NDTF on the statutory bodies. The way Heads are shouted at is unparalleled and obnoxious. Topics of diversity, gender and caste have been removed. Special Committees, lacking statutory status, are imposed on Departments.

The top-down style of functioning came to the foreground when some colleges responded to a WhatsApp text from the Registrar regarding a 1-year MA programme. It is an example of the multi-organ (multi-engine?) failure of the system: (i) The Registrar’s message had no statutory backing – none of the bodies such as the CoC, AC or EC was consulted; (ii) to prove their loyalty, the college Principals pressurised teachers; and (iii) the DUTA leadership’s inability to respond. The knee-jerk reaction to students’ protests for adequate seats in the 1-year PG programme shows a complete lack of planning and the ad hoc manner in which the University is being run.

Two key changes – CUET and the 4th year — have turned out to be a cruel joke on DU. CUET has failed for most colleges and most courses. Manipulation of the BA Programme seat matrix or closure of certain streams were forced on colleges as solutions! The disaster of the CUET is amply clear from the fact that over 30 colleges were allowed to admit students based on Class XII marks.

The sharp drop in the number of students pursuing 4th year shows that students have rejected it. Ignoring feedback of the teachers, the administration insisted on high outputs without working towards the necessary inputs. Students have rejected this mindlessness. But in all this, the University stands damaged.

With statutory nod to Graded Autonomy, HEFA Loans, ever-increasing fees supported by the Institutional Development Plan, ABC Regulations, SWAYAM-MOOCs courses, Semester Away Programme (SAP), and Self-financing courses, what remains is the change in the governance of the university and colleges. The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA) Bill 2025, which is pending before the Parliament, is set to overhaul the rest. While several stakeholders, including AIFUCTO and FEDCUTA, have protested against the Bill, the DUTA leadership has openly welcomed it.

Guldasta – Their Signature!

The open support for the VBSA Bill 2025 is compounded by the absence of any honest movement for restoration of MPhil-PhD increments, counting of past services or OPS. With multiple engine sarkar at the Centre, the State, the University and the DUTA, the 12 Delhi Government Colleges are further marginalised. The refusal to act on the Namita Khare Judgement, which could provide relief to serving teachers, is in sync with the NDTF model of regularisation! Ad hoc appointments have been discontinued and highly qualified teachers are reduced to guest status. While DU arm-twists colleges to reduce the number of guests, the workload and duties imposed on guest faculty are criminal. The University has institutionalised the farce of allowing existing permanent faculty to teach an additional 4 credits as guest faculty in other institutions. If such malpractices are not resisted, they will become part of the new set of Regulations in the next pay revision. In fact the Draft UGC Regulation 2025 does not include an important section on maximum teaching hours. Leave and working hours are normally a part of the Draft Guidelines. Instead, Clause 4.1 of the draft stipulates: “Considering the shifting of focus from classroom education to competency and outcome-based learning, the work commitments of the teachers in full employment should not be less than eight hours per working day.” Introducing selection committees at every level of promotion and counting past service only in cases of appointment through UGC-stipulated Selection Committees, the Draft UGC Regulations plan to undo the victory of the long struggle against the API system and for a pro-teacher promotion scheme.

In violation of the UGC Regulations 2018, DU’s insistence on Scopus-indexed publications has made appointments and promotions virtually impossible for the University-appointed teachers in Departments.

The DUTA leadership has not bothered about a large number of NFS in Yogesh Singh’s tenure. Instead, the guldasta gang is active in congratulating the VC on his reappointment.

How to Unlock This?

The protests across the country and around the world show that the youth are unwilling to accept being shortchanged. They are fighting for their right to quality public education and against a corrupt system that has left most of them in lurch to favour a select few. As teachers of public-funded universities, we must realise that our service conditions will matter to the Government only if education as a fundamental right of every citizen is accepted. With the concerted attack on the public education system – its nature and quality – the attack on our service and working conditions will intensify.

It is time to rebuild our university by demanding meaningful structural changes: beginning with the scrapping of CUET and UGCF! It is time to come together to save our service conditions, our right to teach, our students and public education. It is time we build a collective movement with our students.