The report, prepared by an authorized DUTA subcommittee, has taken stock of the retrogressive trends in higher education like wholesale commercialization and steady withdrawal of public funding, as well as the government’s complete failure to recruit more teachers and provide the necessary infrastructure to effectively implement its expansion and inclusion policies.
The report also emphasizes on the ironical situation in which the government has, in its own exclusive wisdom, deemed it fit to redraw the existing framework of higher education on the basis of dubious and discredited American models, in order to suit the commercial interests of the flagging American education industry. This overhauling, the report notes, is cause for alarm as no guidance has been sought from the teaching community and there has been an overall absence of any credible consultative process.
The DUTA Executive expressed the view that the report is a comprehensive document outlining the areas of concern currently prevalent in higher education policy, as well as providing a comparative perspective drawn from experiences of similar changes in other parts of the world. Hence, it resolved to circulate the document widely among the teaching community and seek the mandate to collectively and logically oppose the undemocratic and anti-people features of academic reform and the undue State interference into the autonomous functioning of universities and other public-funded institutions of higher learning.
S.D. Siddiqui, Secretary Amar Deo Sharma, President
Leave a Reply