Importance and Misfortune of Delhi University

by Satish Deshpande and Apoorvanand

Now that it is difficult to insist (as decision- makers in the print media did until recently) that the Delhi University’s controversial four- year undergraduate programme (FYUP) is a local matter unworthy of national attention, it is time to reiterate the reasons why it does merit such attention. The shortest and perhaps most effective method of outlining the larger implications of the DU-FYUP is to highlight the sheer improbability of what is actually happening in one of India’s largest universities, and then to consider the reasons why regulatory bodies and policy-makers have enabled and encouraged such a bizarre train of events. In brief, it is the mismatch between the stated and established policy and events at the DU that makes this a matter of national interest.

Consider first the reasons why the FYUP provoked controversy in the first place. These had to do with the lack of adequate justification for the programme; its inexplicably self-defeating structure and content; the clear lack of infra-structural preparation; and finally, the numerous procedural violations that have enabled the enforcing of this reform.

1. No Public Document explaining Reasons for Biggest Reform in Seven Decades

To this day, there is no public policy statement issued by the University of Delhi that is commensurate with the magnitude of the reform being proposed. There have been sporadic attempts recently to respond belatedly to the barrage of criticism that the FYUP has elicited, but these are nowhere near adequate. The basic reasons why the change to a four-year degree is being made continue to be shrouded in abstract adjectives and vague good intentions. A full and open public justification is certainly a requirement, particularly for a change that is going to impact thousands of students, teachers and the community at large. At the very minimum, the time taken to earn an honours degree will increase by one-third, and the cost of this degree by at least that much if not much more. It will place the DU and its graduates at odds with all other Indian universities which continue to offer three-year undergraduate degrees. It would need solid arguments backed by carefully considered planning to make these real costs worth incurring, and the DU adminis-tration has provided very little of this.

2. An Unviable Assemblage of Incompatible Contraries

The four-year programme wants to cater to different types of students who seek: a) voca-tional training and low-end jobs; b) the good old three-year degree; and c) to go for higher studies, preferably in the United States. This is why three exit points are offered after two, three and four years. However, all students,regardless of what they seek or when they wish to exit,will study the same courses and take the same exams. Each group deserves support, but this cannot be done within a single curriculum. Every educational system in the world caters to these (and other) types of students, but it does so with different curricula and different institutions, like the two-year Community College and the four-year degree college in the US. The simple fact is that the two years of a vocational course cannot be treated as the first two years of a four-year higher studies-oriented degree, which is what the DU is planning to do. By doing this, the DU risks a double devaluation of both its (current) Honours and Programme degrees. There is already mounting evidence that points towards the conclusion that the new programme will offer students significantly less than what was possible in the old one. The main areas of concern include: a) the Foundation Courses, including questions about their undue curricular weight, confusion about their basic role, and issues related to the pedagogical quality and viability of their content; b) the rigidity of the overall structure that permits even less choice than what was available before—specific worries are about the Discipline 2 and Appli-cation Courses, which will be constrained for logistical reasons to be tied to the Discipline 1 courses rather than be open to all students; and c) the alarming ways in which the content of courses is being dictated by the administration through a two-pronged strategy of sidelining the statutory bodies it cannot manipulate and vesting all power in the bodies that it controls.

3. Lack of Infrastructure and Support Systems 

The problems here are well known: (A) Infrastructure improvements promised at the time of the OBC expansion (which raised student intake by 54 per cent) are yet to come up. Buildings to house students are still in various stages of planning and construction, most are yet to be commissioned. But the four-year degree will add another 33 per cent to the existing student intake! Many DU classrooms cannot seat all enrolled students! (B) Nearly 4000 teachers’ posts have been vacant for three years; the Vice-Chancellor periodically promises to fill them but they simply cannot be filled in time. Even if miraculously filled, these posts will only remedy existing staffing deficits — they will not meet the additional needs of the four-year programme. (C) The new programme assumes only honours-type teaching for all courses in all colleges. Earlier, colleges wishing to offer Honours degrees were vetted for infrastructure, staffing, overall fitness etc., before permission was granted. In the new system it is unclear how or when this (or any) evaluative machinery is going to work.

4. Procedural Violations 

Departments and colleges were not informed —leave alone consulted—about the proposed changes prior to the Academic Council meeting of December 24 in which they were passed. The Academic Council meeting was convened in the winter holidays and the effective notice given was of just three days, that is, on a Friday for a Monday meeting. A proposal of this magnitude was tabled and passed in a single meeting. Colleges, departments, faculties or individual teachers—other than those invited by and part of the VC’s team—were given no chance to respond to the single most important curriculum change of the past seventy years. Courses were designed in a huge hurry at the time of peak workload due to teaching, exams and other tasks. Adequate time was not given for vetting of courses by the statutory Committees of Courses.

Why these Changes, and Why Now?

Why is a programme that is at odds with settled national policy like the 10+2+3 scheme—and which therefore amounts to a silent and un-mandated change of this policy—being promoted by those at the helm of higher education? It is this question and its possible answers that provide a clue to both the importance and misfortune of the Delhi University.

A change that impacts all Indian universities is being undertaken without any policy document and without inputs from parliamentarians, educationists and members of the  public.

Satish Deshpande is a Professor, Department of Sociology, Delhi University, and Apoorvanand is a Professor, Department of Hindi, Delhi University.