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Budget 2018’s Focus on Education

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The Union Budget for this fiscal year was announced on 1st February 2018. Here is a look at all the aspects concerning the student varsity of India.

Economists and critics have had their opinions about the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s last budget before the 2019 elections. Let us look at how education fared in Arun Jaitley’s last budget which mainly focuses on the agricultural sector.

1 lakh Crore will be invested in RISE (Revitalisating of Infrastructure and System of Education) till 2022 aiming to improve the state of quality education and infrastructure of such institutions. Similarly, Eklavya schools will be opened in areas of more than 50% tribal citizens. The real question is whether this money will be fully utilized in these missions or will the future generation of India still grapple with low standards of education in its government schools. According to studies, the quality of education in the already established government schools is abysmal and students often drop out.

18 autonomous Schools of Planning and Architecture will be made in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and National Institute of Technology (NIT) across the country. In the latest Prime Minister Fellows Scheme, 1000 B.Tech students of premier institutions will be selected to pursue their PhDs from IITs and IISs. They would be provided with handsome fellowships and be expected to teach in high schools for a couple of hours every week. This scheme would help scholars having  limited means improve their job and future prospects. A Railway University will also be set up at Vadodara, Gujarat.

12.56 Crore rupees have been allocated for scholarships for students with disability. Government teacher training will also be provided to improve the quality of education in government. schools. The focus and benefits for startups are likely to create more jobs in the economy.

The government’s decision to reduce Employees’ Provident Fund from 12% to 8% is not an intelligent move as it decreases the employee’s retirement money as well as interest that could have been earned. No focus has been paid to construction of more medical colleges and availability of easy student loans.

The budget is not inclusive of all students and does not benefit them equally. The students’ votes would depend on how well the government performed during these past four years overall and how well it helped boost our economy. The economy is a vital tool in the functioning of any country, considering the fact that approximately 50% of the population is below the age of 25, the economy must cater to students due to abundance in numbers.

Feature Image Credits: The Financial Express

Prachi Mehra

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Campus Central

DU to Release Admission Guidelines By Month End

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The University of Delhi’s admission committee is expected to come out with the admission guidelines by the end of this month. The Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University, Prof. Yogesh Tyagi, is expected to brief the media about the admission guidelines of the 2018-19 session even before it is formulated. This tradition had been discontinued during the tenure of previous Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Dinesh Singh.

“We will soon announce the admission committee and a lot of details regarding the forthcoming admission season. The admission committee will be led by Prof. Maharaja Pandit and majority of the former members will be a part of the committee. However, we are also thinking of expanding the committee further, details of which will be revealed at the briefing for media,” Tyagi said while talking to The Times of India.

When DU Beat approached professor Maharaja Pandit, he said, “I have been appointed as the chairman of the admission committee formed on Monday and the admission guidelines will soon be formulated.”

The admission committee aims to invest arduous efforts to complete the admission process in time for the forthcoming session. The University is also striving to eliminate the loopholes of last year’s admission process. The ambitious aim of conducting online entrance exam for selected courses will also be reconsidered.

Feature Image Credits: India Today

Sandeep Samal

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DUB Speak

Right to Play and the Debate Around It

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Sachin Tendulkar in his debut speech at the Rajya Sabha spoke about the importance of Right to Play.

We live in a society today that houses extreme contradictions in its beliefs. Every Sunday we turn on the TV and enjoy a cricket match or a late night football game, but when it comes to allowing our own children to pursue a sport as a career in their lives it is, in most cases, frowned upon. When a child begins his/her schooling s/he is always taught to focus on education and is presented the same slippery slope argument, which is that good grades will lead to success. All other recreational or creative activities are branded to be “extra-curriculars”, implying they aren’t essential to one’s life and development. This approach, however, is absolutely flawed.

Very recently, India’s most loved cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, who is also a nominated member of the Upper House of the Parliament, used his platform to voice concern over the matter of the exclusion of Right to Play in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education bill. In his speech, he laid emphasis on the importance of sports and urged the government to make the adequate amendment to the previously mentioned bill.

According to many psychological studies on child development, Play allows children to use their creativity while developing their imagination, dexterity, and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. Play is important to healthy brain development. It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact with the world around them.

This issue raised by the former batsman is not one to be taken lightly. It is of high relevance in a country like India where more than half of the country’s 1.25 billion population is below the age of 25 and more than two-thirds, below 35. This year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also used his platform and called upon children to engage in sports and take up other physical activities while expressing concerns over the rising number cases of obesity or malnutrition among children that are rampantly prevalent in India. Talking about this issue, the iconic athlete also cited many examples of national level players who are struggling to make ends meet while highlighting the importance of providing financial aid, he further added that sports can be considered an essential and mandated part of curriculum and consequently, each life should get the Right to Play at school.

Feature image credits: The Quint

Bhavya Banerjee

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DUB Speak

Crumbling Infrastructure and the Ad-Hoc Culture are Dragging DU Down

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It’s 2017 and the University of Delhi (DU) is crumbling under degrading infrastructure, a culture of ad-hoc and degrading standards of education; the only sustenance is DU’s history and the pride associated with it and the sense of exclusivity and hype partly owed to the ridiculously high-cut-offs.

Delhi University with its ridiculously high cut-offs, glitzy fests, and star nights and a long list of alumni winning accolades in the world of politics, films and academia, has a lot to boast of.  Its reputation and prestige, along with its hype and exclusivity make it a dream institution for students across the country. The culturally rich and “woke” campus is coveted by undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students across the country. But Delhi University has been systematically degrading to meet not just global standards, but it has failed to match up to the infrastructure and resources offered in colleges in India. Globally, DU is ranked as 481-490 by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) rankings, which is largely regarded as the most accurate ranking for universities.

The ugly truth about the University of Delhi is that despite having some of the best students and faculty members from across the country, it fails to reach its full potential or even push its own horizons. Ceilings have fallen in Daulat Ram College and College of Vocational Studies, Gargi College students complained of lack of an adequate number of washrooms, and most colleges are witnessing their main building slowly crumble away. A significant lack in number of classrooms for tutorials, no proper arrangements for recreational and extra-curricular activities, and a severe shortage of adequate sports facilities is a problem faced across colleges in DU. India has grown out of the phase where it only had the bare-minimum- when the then Prime Minister Shastri had to ask citizens to fast once a week due to grain shortage. But while the rest of the country has come out of that era of scraping by and having only the bare-minimum, DU has not. Apart from the top five or six colleges, most of the colleges still lack proper resources, auditoriums, and interactive classrooms. But infrastructural resources or the lack of them is not Delhi University’s only problem, the ad-hoc culture is as well. The practice of inviting teachers to teach temporarily in colleges as ad-hoc lecturers has become extremely common. As a consequence of this, lecturers often shuffle from college to college as they are replaced. Since their jobs are not permanent and are highly dependent on the authorities’ whims and fancies, most ad-hoc lecturers find themselves under immense pressure to meet the expectations of their immediate superiors. This is necessarily a bad thing because lecturers have often complained of ill-treatment under such a system, as is evident by the extensive number of protests that take place regarding the same issue. While these academics dedicate their time to save their jobs and seek a certain degree of stability in their lives, any autonomy that they have- to teach with absolute freedom, confidence, and passion, to criticise anyone from college authorities to governments and administrations, to speak fearlessly without censoring their opinion- is snatched from them. Most of us would think this isn’t a particularly big problem; after all they are completely free to teach the prescribed curriculum as they please. But the point is, Delhi University gets its je ne sais quoi from the kind of space it reserves to discuss unconventional and unpopular opinions. The very spirit of the university can be summed up by its culture of questioning and challenging status quo and the emphasis it lays on political awareness, activism, and protests. When its academia- the people responsible for providing students not just knowledge about the curriculum but also about the world- tread with fear and are afraid to speak their minds, students may also be afraid to do the same.

Times are changing and universities across the world are constantly innovating and offering its students better facilities. Those attempting to silence me for criticising DU’s lack of resources might say that since DU offers a highly subsidised education, it cannot obviously meet global standards due to financial reasons. The truth is, even Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) offer a subsidised education (while there was a revision in the fee structure, a professional degree is bound to cost more) as well. To say that one government-funded institute can have adequate resources at its disposal while another cannot, makes little sense. Change is the only constant and those who fail to evolve, stagnate and then disintegrate. For the University of Delhi to continue living up to its hype, it needs to evolve and adapt to modern times. Better resources, facilities for students and teachers and reformations in its problematic ad-hoc culture are some ways in which it can do the same.

 

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat

Kinjal Pandey

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News

Named and Shamed: List of Sexually Predating Professors Goes Viral

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A list containing the names of 68 academicians from universities across the country is being circulated on social media, tainted with charges of sexual harassment.

Recently, Raya Sarkar, a lawyer, made a Facebook post on the 24th October that said, “One sexual harasser is Dipesh Chakravarty, the other is Kanak Sarkar Prof. teaching political science at Jadavpur University. If anyone knows of academics who have sexually harassed/were sexually predatory to them or have seen it firsthand, PM me and I’ll add them to the list.” The post went viral and the names of 68 academics were added to the list along with the institution they were a part of.

Raya Sarkar, “an attorney interested in prisoners’ rights, reproductive rights, and anti-caste jurisprudence”, as her Facebook profile reads, posted the invitation at 12.25 am on October 24, inviting several others to add to the list of sexual harassers. The list was instantly updated bearing the names of prominent professors, including several from renowned institutions like Jadavpur University, University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, St. Xavier’s College, Ambedkar University, and more. The list remains constantly updated.

Commenting on her own post, Raya Sarkar said, “Most if not all are first-person accounts of people who were molested/sexually harassed by the people who have been put on this list. Rest are a friend (sic) they (the victims) have chosen to specifically contact me as they fear their identity being disclosed. In fact, since there is a disturbing amount of rape apologia and victim blaming, the victims have gone out of their way to show me screenshots of them being harassed and abused by the people they have named.”

The post falls as an aftermath social media campaign called #MeToo that opened the platform for individuals to share their sexual harassment encounters over the years with the hashtag #metoo. This campaign started as a response to the Harvey Weinstein case in Hollywood, where around 40 women, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, etc., came forward with the chronicles of sexual harassment by the leading movie mogul.

While the initiative gathered a fair share of supporters, it was also slammed by a group of feminists in an open letter on Kafila.online titled, Statement by Feminists on Facebook Campaign to “Name and Shame”. These activists said, “We are dismayed by the initiative on Facebook in which men are being listed and named as sexual harassers with no context or explanation. One or two names of men who have been already found guilty of sexual harassment by due process are placed on par with unsubstantiated accusations. It worries us that anybody can be named anonymously, with a lack of answerability. Where there are genuine complaints, there are institutions and procedures, which we should utilise. We too know the process is harsh and often tilted against the complainant. We remain committed to strengthening these processes. At the same time, abiding by the principles of natural justice, we remain committed to due process, which is fair and just. This manner of naming can delegitimise the long struggle against sexual harassment, and make our task as feminists more difficult. We appeal to those who are behind this initiative to withdraw it, and if they wish to pursue complaints, to follow due process, and to be assured that they will be supported by the larger feminist community in their fight for justice.” This was signed by prominent activists like Ayesha Kidwai, Kavita Krishnan, Nivedita Menon, and Vrinda Grover.

 

Feature Image Credits: India Times

 

Trishala Dutta

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DUB Speak

Skills To Acquire By The End Of College

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Whether you’re about to complete your first semester or have started to fill out forms for postgraduate courses, it’s a good idea to begin working towards mastering a few basic skills before you leave college.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single college student in the duration of their undergraduate degree must be in want of the answer to “what am I doing with my life?” Initially, the refrain is followed by a small laugh or dramatic eye-rolling; it is meant to illicit chuckles. However, with time, it takes on darker connotations. The future seems daunting and it hits you that simply misquoting dialogues or lines from books and making pointless, movie-related similes do not qualify as skills. Hence, you should work towards mastering at least a few basic skills before leaving college, in order to qualify not just legally, but also mentally, as an adult.

  1. Cooking

I’m unsure of most things in life, but the fact that I will need food to survive is not one of them. Once you leave the world of hostel/PGs/tiffin services, you’ll need to know how to cook beyond making variations of Maggi and eggs, regardless of your gender.

  1. Sewing

Again, buttons coming out of your shirts or dresses, or those embarrassing tears in your clothes are not gender-specific. Life is also not a Bollywood movie so you can’t rely on your mother/female partner to do it for you. It’s quite easy to learn, really.

  1. Driving

Whether it’s a motorbike, scooty, or a car, you should have mastery over at least one form of transport besides the Metro, even if you don’t own a car. Also, use the bicycle. Don’t feel smug; there may be some people who can’t even cycle to work, though they may be skilled at pointing out how cooking and sewing are their forte.

  1. Performing Basic First-Aid

It will always be useful to know about the basics like bandaging and cleaning of wounds, and if you want to be more advanced, things like Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) as well. You should have some knowledge of medicines and home remedies for basic ailments like cold, cough, stomach problems, body aches, etc. One can’t rely on the internet always, for it can pull a Peter Pettigrew and abandon you when you need it the most. (See what I meant by pointless similes?)

  1. Money Management

If you’re a day scholar, this is especially important, as one becomes complacent with money in the presence of biased human ATMs, better known as ‘parents’.  Learn to make a budget at the beginning of the month, and most importantly, cultivate the habit of saving. It is extremely helpful to have savings for times of emergency.

 

Feature Image Credits: I Will Teach You

 

Rishika Singh

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DUB Speak

A Glimpse in the Life of an Off-Campus Student

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Out of 60 colleges that fall under the University of Delhi, at least 20 colleges are not located in ‘primal’ locations – the North and South Campus. Despite forming a decent share of the total students studying in DU, these colleges are often overlooked and their worries not given equal impetus compared to fellow north and south campus colleges.

In light of the recent news reports citing safety concerns for female students of Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, we must address the issues that an off-campus student generally faces. After interacting with several students from the aforementioned category, the following is an attempt to point out the mutual problems and arrive at hopeful solutions-

  1. Hostel/PG Facilities – Out of the 15 Delhi University Colleges that offer hostel facilities, only 2 are off-campus colleges: Maharaja Agrasen College and Keshav Mahavidyalya. Both colleges offer hostels only for girls that too with a very limited capacity. It becomes a daunting task to find PGs especially when the college is in a relatively secluded area. Famous PGs in Kamala Nagar are a go-to for most students in the North Campus, but off-campus students don’t enjoy a similar structure. A lot of times, students rent flats with fellow batch mates where may end up paying higher. There are steps being taken to fulfill the lack of such facilities, as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College and Shaheed Sukhdev College for Business Studies are in the process of building hostels which would be open soon.
  2. Limited reach of on-campus events – Any organiser of an event or a quiz would agree that gathering footfall for society events is a herculean task. Since many colleges are in far-flung areas, students think twice before attending that college’s event in comparison to a North-Campus College where one can miss a couple of lectures and attend the rest. Consequently, finding sponsors for societies is extremely taxing as most sponsors consider an event’s footfall before investing money in the society. A few colleges which enjoy famous reputation may not face this problem, but many which are comparatively newer and not as well-known have to go through a struggle to raise funds.
  3. Lack of University-wide Facilities – Every north campus student can avail the benefits of centralised photocopy shops, university special buses, and has easy access to the parts of Delhi University that are relatively unknown to most off-campus students. Vice Chancellor’s Lawns, DUSU office, Mind and Body Centre, Conference Centre are at the threshold of every North Campus student. To top it, protests and marches are a regular thing in North Campus, and many students are yet to experience the power of dissenting voices through this wonderful medium. Moreover, any news of relevance to the student community reaches late to a student who isn’t in those extreme directions.
  4. Fewer student-centric hangout spots – While north campus has Hudson Lane and Kamla Nagar, south campus has Satya Niketan, off-campus college students end up in varied places each time. Depending on the location, the surrounding locality of the college can either be lackluster, with very few areas of interest or with extremely pricey restaurants that primarily cater to families, barring a few outlets opened for students. College canteen becomes the last resort especially when breaks between classes are of a shorter duration.

In addition to the above, the newer off-campus colleges have to face the brunt of being new.  Students there have complained about lack of exposure in comparison to other colleges with established Placement Cells and decades-old society culture. The management doesn’t entirely trust students and many college rules digress from commonplace practices eg. the system of ECA or Pink Slips is not prevalent in many newer colleges where the management repudiates the students’ requests. An implication of this system of long procedures is heavy focus on academics and figuratively no co-curriculars to participate in. Connectivity is another major problem for students of Maharaja Agrasen College, as the nearest metro station isn’t exactly near to their college.

Regardless of everything mentioned, there are several bonus points of being an off-campus college student. The infrastructure of some off-campus colleges is better than many of its extreme counterparts, DDUC, MAC, and SSCBS being great examples of that. The students who disdain the heavily politicised atmosphere during elections season do not need to fall prey to unnecessary harangues. Opportunities to start new societies tend to be on the higher side, and ways to escape droning lectures are always innumerable. Specialised courses, sprawling campuses, hi-tech facilities, and immense focus on academics steal the spotlight from north and south.

 

Feature Image Credits: So Delhi

 

Vijeata Balani

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Delhi HC asks DU Law Faculty to absorb students for the 301 vacant seats

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The Delhi High Court, on Wednesday, asked the Law Faculty of the University of Delhi (DU) to scrap its policy of clubbing two categories.

 

Delhi High Court, on Wednesday, ordered the Law Faculty of the University of Delhi (DU) to fill the vacant 301 seats for the LLB course, based on the petition filed by a group of students who failed to get admission in the last academic year (2016-17), due to the varsity’s step of clubbing the 2,310 seats with 301 seats that are actually meant for the “supernumerary candidates”.

On 28th June, the court had passed an order permitting the admission of the 2,310 students, oblivious of the fact that the university had “erroneously included” the reserved seats as well.

The “supernumerary candidates” fall under a third category that includes Persons with Disabilities (PWD), Children and Widows of Armed Forces (CW) and the Foreign Nationals (FN). As reported to The Indian Express, the bench consisting of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar were quoted saying, “It is submitted that DU was required to admit 301 candidates in the reserved categories as supernumeraries over and above 2,310 seats”. It also came to their notice that this admission process has been in existence and in practice since the year 2008.

“It appears that this submission is incomplete….as the undisputed factual position placed before us is that since 2008 till 2015-16, DU was admitting 2,310 students as well as additional supernumerary candidates for the PWD/CW/FN”, the bench noted.

Furthermore, according to report, the cut-off date of 31st of August will not come as a restriction to the admission of the concerned candidates.

Feature Image Credit- The Indian Express

 

Shrija Ganguly

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Audit Report On DU Irregularities

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An audit report was done by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), University of Delhi reveal irregularities regarding appointments, land acquisition, income tax etc. They assessed several financial and administrative irregularities in its audit report of DU. These irregularities were assessed earlier this year. A lot of questions were raised on the university’s alleged “adventurous expenditure”. The document was titled “Inspection report on the accounts of University of Delhi for the year 2014-16”. It was compiled by the Director General of Audit, Central Expenditure and highlighted various irregularities in appointments, land acquisitions, income tax etc.

For 2014-16 audit, CAG gave 11 inspection reports and 60 outstanding paragraphs which were struck down to eight inspection reports and 34 outstanding paragraphs after due process of explanation. Sources say, when the audit was closed, there were only 20 or so paragraphs left outstanding. These outstanding paragraphs, too, are being worked on by the university. Earlier, in transactional audits, at times, the university used to have around 200 outstanding paragraphs.

A law student along with an advocate, Mohit K. Gupta, had filed an RTI with the CAG in July this year. The audit includes 16 faculties and 77 colleges. The audit has questioned the treatment of the post of registrar on deputation basis and termed purchase of iMac computers for routine work in South Campus as “unauthorized expenditure” worth Rs 24.95 lakhs. The report also highlighted that the University press had been under-utilized and incurred losses from 2009-15. It showed that the press had not paid expenses amounting to Rs 1.30 crore and had idle equipments worth Rs 36 lakhs. The non-payment resulted in the outsourcing of the work causing losses amounting to Rs 1.40 crores to the Faculty of Law.

Not only this, the report also revealed that the university had incurred heavy losses due to the parallel running of feeder buses along with campus bus services without any feasibility analysis. A source in the Vice-Chancellor’s office said that the University was working on the outstanding paragraphs and would respond any further queries by the CAG.

Image Credits: CAG

 

Karan Singhania

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Leaders For Tomorrow (LFT) takes a stand against ragging and drug abuse

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After the anti-drug campaign in Ambedkar University, we trace the origins of a similar campaign in the University of Delhi (DU), through the lens of the Leaders For Tomorrow (LFT) organisation.

 

A couple of days ago, the Social Welfare Department of the government of Delhi launched an anti-drug program, named ‘Khwahishen Udaan Ki’, at Ambedkar University. Having boarded the same train of thought, the colleges of DU, in collaboration with the Leaders For Tomorrow (LFT) – a non-profit youth organization – have carried out campaigns pertaining to drug abuse as well as ragging.

The Anti-Drug and Anti Ragging (ADAR) campaign has been carried out in several DU colleges. With the University welcoming several outstation students every year, it becomes imperative to talk about these issues on an individual level. Problems usually germinate and cultivate themselves through the irrigation of peer pressure, as has been witnessed in most of the cases. The ADAR is specifically oriented towards the freshers and making them aware of the menace that occasionally tends to take a toll on the campus. The necessary measures to be taken and the need to make them feel the presence of a helping hand are some of the other areas which ADAR focuses upon.

While the presence of the LFT is quite evident, it is important to note that it is independent of college societies and holds campaigns in campuses all across the country. Although the menace of ragging has taken a back seat in recent years, considering the legal action taken in the form of the anti-ragging forms collected from students during admissions every year, the problem of drug and substance abuse still persists. Rohit Tomar, a third year B.Com (Programme) student of Aryabhatta College, who is a member of the LFT as well, feels that “[t]he University can keep a check on substance abuse by restricting the sale of drugs to a particular area outside the campus, say 1 kilometre away”.

In Sri Venkateswara College, all the students who registered with ADAR pledged to fight against the looming menace in campus. Jatin Swami, a third year student having pledged for the same, and the former head of LFT in the institution, shares: “Since the programme is centric to the freshers, there is the development of a sense of safety as well as the courage to come up and report cases, which becomes impossible otherwise, due to the communication gap”. He further adds, “The environment of a college is decided by its authorities. Just filling forms never helps”.

There are Anti-Ragging Committees present in most of the colleges with the college authorities having an upper-hand. They are responsible for taking action if the situation demands it.

Being a youth organization, they have an all-encompassing hand that overarches other issues, including a plantation drive (Adopt A Plant-ADAPT), cleanliness drive, collection drive, Visits for Compassion and other red-letter day events, all pertaining to particular social issues, in order to make the youth aware of the menace in our society, and how to tackle it. Their efforts prove that after all, as Mahatma Gandhi once said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”.

 

Feature Image Credit: The Millenium Post

 

Shrija Ganguly

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