The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) held a press conference at their office on Monday in order to make public the feedback they received from students of Miranda House College, St. Stephen’s College, SRCC, Dyal Singh College and the Germanic and Romance Study with regard to the Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP). Initially DUTA President Nandita Narain drew attention to the AISA referendum conducted earlier this year. This referendum in overwhelming numbers of student votes rejected the FYUP. She then went on to attack the official feedback survey undertaken by the University officials and called it a skewed exercise as it did not give the student any real scope to express opinion against the FYUP. Moreover the feedback was never made public, which makes it safe to assume that the students still went on to out rightly reject the FYUP. The DUTA in its attempt to conduct a fair survey devised its own questionnaire and received feedback from a total of 930 students out of which 570 belong to Miranda House, 212 students are from St Stephens and 148 from SRCC. The data collected from Dyal Singh College and from the students studying in the Faculty of Germanic and Romance Studies was not available as all feedback forms had not been returned, but the data shall be available soon was the reassurance.

The students of the above mentioned colleges rejected the University’s claim of increased employability under the new system. 88% students from Miranda House and 73% from SRCC believed that the Foundation Courses (FCs) were nothing but a refurbished format of what was already taught in school. This led to 86% of Miranda students and 89% of SRCC students saying that there was no use of the FCs in the course of learning. Students also voiced their concerns about how the FCs gave them no time or scope to study the DC I courses- the ones they had actually opted for in college. The question of striking a balance between studies and extracurricular activities also seemed like a ‘dream’ to many students present. Meriam from St. Stephens said that due to long hours of classes under the FYUP they were left with little to no time to take part in the co- curricular activities that they liked.

Dr. Renu Arora and Dr. Abha Dev Habib- professors from Miranda House along with Arini Kar and Deepika Bisht from Miranda voiced the many concerns of teachers and students. The system of having about 55 marks out of 75 as internal assessment was questioned again. With an average of 100 students on roll in a class, the teacher would only be toying with the student’s result in case he or she is unable to recall the class performance of each and every student. It was also told how the lack of proper study/ research material made project work nothing but a sham. The laptops distribution exercise was mocked by calling it ‘a pacifier to a crying baby’ by Alisha from Dyal Singh College.

Other concerns raised were that from the point of view of outstation students. Given that the cost of living in Delhi averages out to be 1 to 1.5 lakhs a year for an outstation student. The additional 4th year would doubly burden these students and their families, it must be noted that this sample is made up by students coming from varying social and economic abilities. Dr. Virat and Dr. Vikas, professors from Dyal Singh college chipped in by saying that the teachers also reject the FYUP alongside the students. Moreover they turned their attention to the problems faced by differently abled students, especially those who are visually challenged. They said that there was a lack of accessibility to the new study material and teachers of FCs were not given any special training in order to deal with such challenges. Dr. Vikas said that this system should have been reconsidered instead of it being imposed in a top down manner. Adding to this, Dr. Virat told us how the voices of the real stakeholders- students and teachers- is to be taken into account.

The DUTA in this situation proposes the following things. First of all a full roll back of the FYUP and a complete U- turn to the Annual system. This is proposed for the next batch of students, that is the incoming batch of 2014- 15. For the current batch that is already in this system, DUTA suggests that the number of FCs to be cut down considerably if not removed and the course be restructured to make DC I and DC II courses more dominant. Also, the fourth year should be made optional covering more ‘applied and hands on courses in the 4th year.’ The DUTA also criticized the mid course exit points option by calling it a farce, their demand is that even this should be done away with.

The DUTA reassured students and teachers by saying that even though the University administration refused to acknowledge its mistakes, the DUTA shall constantly intensify its efforts in reversing these wrongdoings, its aim is to ultimately do away with the FYUP and bring back the 3 year Annual System, with retention of B. A., B. Com. And B. Sc. Programme courses.

DUTA’s suggestion for the current batch of the FYUP, they hope to get implemented by the 2nd year that is 3rd semester of the current batch: