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Stephen’s Fee Melee

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Disputes abound over proposed Fee Hike

The College Governing Body of St. Stephen’s College ratified the recommendations of the College Finance Committee which suggested a 40%- 57% increase in the fees, with effect from the current academic session, 2009-10. This move by the governing body has met with stiff resistance from several students, who consider the steep hike highly unwarranted.

The students have chosen to make a visible protest against the hike in fees by sporting black arm bands. A Third year student of the college says, “The magnitude of the fee hike is the problem here. A 10-15% increase in the fees would have been reasonable, but a 50% fee hike is outrageous. This may not affect the majority of the students, but we also need to keep in mind the people who will be seriously affected. We have to consider the students who will not be able to pay the raised fees and so we must protest against this unfair step.”

However, some teachers choose to take a different stand on the issue. Mr. Shankaran, a professor in the college says, “Several colleges like Khalsa College and Sri Vivekananda College have external funding from their respective affiliated institutions. However, the church which we are affiliated to, the Church of North India, does not provide us with funds. We are running a huge deficit and the situation is so bad, that we do not have enough funds to maintain day-to-day activities. We need to increase the fee so that the college can run smoothly and the infrastructure of the college can be maintained.”

Several representatives of students have had meetings with the bursar and the principal in order to clarify the reasons behind the fee hike and request them to reduce the amount incremented. The Bursar, Mr. Raghunathan, has therefore circulated a written explanation among the students giving reasons as to why the fee hike is justified.

The circular says that the increase in the fee is required simply because over the years costs have gone up while the fee has remained unchanged. The circular cites the example of the increasing price of books for the library, thus necessitating an increase in the library fee. Costs of scientific equipment too have seen a rise, resulting in a hike in the ‘Science Facility fee’. The ‘Student Aid Fund’ to help needy students has also been augmented while a ‘Development fund’ has been set up to help in the acquisition of more lecture and tutorial rooms and better laboratory facilities. The ‘Residence Fund’ of the college which is used to pay for salaries of the garden staff, security staff and mess staff and which is not covered by the UGC grant is also suffering a deficit which needs to be addressed. Moreover, the college has to pay the arrears of salary according to the VI th Pay Commission’s recommendations.

All this results in the minimum anticipated deficit to be over Rs 45 Lakhs and the situation is only expected to worsen during the course of this academic session. Says the bursar, “If the University undergraduate tuition fee is raised to Rs 100 a month, you can either choose to look upon it as a more reasonable amount than the original laughably small sum of Rs 15 per month, or you can choose to see it as more than a 600% fee hike. So what one needs to think of is the resulting total, rather than the amount by which the fee has been increased.”

Some students agree with the bursar. A Second year student says, “I don’t mind the increase in the fee since DU fees are in any case ridiculously low and moreover most kids are easily capable of paying the new fee, even if it means making a tiny compromise in the shopping department.”

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Marks Moderation Maddens Students

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Fourth year in the running, despite vehement protests, the students of Delhi University continue to face the problem of marks moderation. The issue is that there is actually no sound basis for this moderation and not all colleges have been subject to it.

Ever since results have been declared for the annual year 2008 – 2009, infuriated students from well known colleges of the north and south campus have been protesting outside the Vice chancellor’s office demanding an explanation for the scaling down of their marks.

The list of colleges affected include Sriram Ram College Of Commerce, Lady Sri Ram College for Women , MirandaHouse, Gargi and Jesus and Mary College .In most of these colleges, both the students and staff ,have actively participated in the remonstration against the allegedly baseless moderation of marks. Almost all departments have faced this problem.

In the mathematics department of LSR, a minimum of 8 marks has been lopped off for most students, which is a loss of almost three percent. The Economics , English and Sociology departments have lost a minimum of four marks .In Delhi University where competition is so stiff, the moderation affects students’ university ranking. Students from these colleges have also lost out on first divisions as a consequence of this The philosophy department of MH has been of the victim not only this year but also the year before this. This moderation especially happens in Logic, which is the most scoring subject of the department. Last year, 5 marks had been deducted from the logic paper in spite of the paper being scoring. This year, a lot of students had to bear the brunt as marks have been cut left, right and centre. A student from the Philosophy dept, 2nd year adds on ” We did not expect this to happen. I myself had got 22 in my internal assessment but now my marks are scaled down to 14. Philosophy is as it is not a very scoring subject and logic is the only paper where we can fetch high marks, but sadly this has been very shattering”.

Regular protests in the form of dharnas have been held outside the Vice Chancellor’s office. Statistical proof has been presented. Concerned authorities reasoned out the scaling by saying that the system is unbiased and is done in colleges and for students whose college average of marks show a great amount of aberrance from the university average of marks. A message was also passed on from the Dean of Students Welfare that it was impossible to revert the marks but from the following year a bigger moderation committee would be formed in order to avoid such problems. This announcement was met with even greater objection because the idea of these protests was the abolition of such a committee.

Also marks for the students with low college averages have been scaled down and hence the logic of uniform marking doesn’t hold either. The students are now demanding a rational basis for these steps from the Vice Chancellor.

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SEMESTER SYSTEM: To be or not to be?

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Delhi University has made life easy. All you need to do is study as final exams approach. It worked for the lazy lot, but the university seems to be heading towards a revision of plans, with talks of introducing the semester system post recommendations made by the UGC and NKC . This however has generated mixed reactions.

The Vice Chancellor in an online addressal to members of the university elaborated the rationale behind this system. Enlisting the numerous benefits, Professor Pental said that introduction of the system would inculcate better paced understanding of the subject and more focused classroom interaction. Two semester examinations would not only inculcate regular study habits among students but also eventually halve their workload, as they’d only have to prepare half of the syllabus that is presently prepared for the final examination.

Introducing this system also implies greater stress on interdisciplinary courses. While some professors and students feel it would be compartmentalizing knowledge and discouraging in depth study of any course, the upside is that undergraduate students would be imbibed with relevant knowledge outside the boundaries of their primary subject..

The supporters of this system also insist that by introducing the concept of credits, students can avail the use of short term study abroad programmes that would give them the opportunity to gain greater inter university exposure, both at the national and international level.

Introducing the semester system at an undergraduate level in Delhi University would automatically synchronise it with the prevailing system of examination at the post graduate level as well as that with the few courses already following it such as bbs and journalism.

This is not to say the system doesn’t have its detractors. At a dharna held outside the VC’s office this June, the All India Democratic Students’ Organisation had expressed concern over the excessive academic demands of the system , saying that it could take away from the students’ social and extra curricular activities.

Those against the implementation of the system also point out that it would be detrimental to the interests of teachers because the short period of a semester would hinder them from getting leave both for medical reasons and for research work. In such a situation a compromise either with the research work or the students’ syllabus would be inevitable. Conducting and evaluating two examinations a year would increase their workload immensely.

Many members of the Delhi University Teachers’ Association feel that maybe the varsity is not logistically enabled for such a transition and needs to do a lot of research before implementing it. As a teacher from Hans Raj puts it, “In principle, I think it’s a great idea. It’s a worldwide system and it would make the course more rigorous. I just hope that in our university, with so many colleges included, the authorities find the right way to implement it”. What teachers are adamant on is that the results should be declared sooner and the class hours should not be reduced.

The AIDSO had earlier insinuated that the semester system was an inseparable part of those recommendations of the Knowledge Commission, which were conducive to globalisation and liberalisation policies as it made education a salable commodity while simultaneously adapting the system to suit the market economy. They feel that in the name of imparting quality education the character building aspect of the process would be destroyed merely making education a saleable product.

Students are keen on this change but confused about its implications. A student from Hindu college says “This would leave me with no time for ECA and I can’t promise so much regularity.” On the other hand, a student from SRCC approves of it saying ‘It would make our study pattern more flexible, making it parallel to other universities in and around India and allowing movement across universities.”

The students already in colleges with the semester system have something else to say. According to a student pursuing B.Tech (IT) from Kurukshetra University, “The system is good but there’s the pressure of exams coming up every 6 months after which new subjects are introduced. At the end of the day, you don’t feel satisfied with the amount of time you are able to give to each subject”. Another student from IP college feels that “it gives us two chances in a year to improve on our own marks and we don’t have to study as many units as other colleges in one go”.

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Website Woes

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Results Declared, students still in the dark.

Delhi University has declared the results of the annual examinations, 2009 for most courses. The announcement of results commenced in the last week of June. However, several students studying in North Campus colleges have complained of the inaccessibility of the same due to the irregular maintenance of the official DU website, www.du.ac.in.

South campus colleges have not faced this problem as their results are not displayed on the official DU website. All the required information is available to them on www.south.du.ac.in, a website dedicated to south campus colleges of DU, which is regularly updated.

Says Dikshant Bagh, a student of Electronics in Hansraj College, “I found out about the declaration of results from the south campus website. The official website did not display the results until two days after the declaration. This distressed me greatly as I saw the number of failures on the south du website and had to wait two days to find out my own result”. The situation was worse for philosophy (Honours), the results of which were displayed a full six days after their declaration. Many anxious students were forced to rush to their respective colleges to find out their result, defeating the whole purpose of the website. The problem was compounded for out-station students, who spent many nail-biting moments on the phone trying to find out their result. The website in question seems to have a track record for failing at crucial moments.

Says, Resham Manaktala of Lady Shri Ram College, “The website is not user friendly. It kept hanging when the date sheet came out. It also does not provide specific information for many Post Graduate programmes offered in DU.”

Courses whose results are declared include philosophy honours, geography honours, chemistry hons , bbs , journalism ,psychology and applied psychology hons, and maths honours. Most results are expected to be out by  July 21.

( The writer can be contacted at [email protected])

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