MHRD’s Announcement on Autonomy of Colleges is Unacceptable; DUTA Will Fight
The recent announcement made by the MHRD on its active attempts to grant autonomy to premier colleges of Delhi University, namely St. Stephen’s College, Lady Shri Ram College and Shri Ram College of Commerce amounts to a nefarious bid to dismember the University. The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) categorically objects to this perverse move to wean these colleges away from the University in the name of academic and administrative autonomy.
Such autonomy, by way of giving disproportionate powers to the governing bodies and managing committees of these colleges, will work against the interests of independent academic and intellectual pursuits that the prestige of these colleges has been founded on. No attempt has been made, on the part of the Government, to even enquire whether the teachers and students of these colleges would want such autonomy. Instead of giving academic independence to students and teachers, the managing committees of these colleges would be interested in further commercializing the education that they seek to impart. Having the unfettered freedom to raise their own revenue through fees, such colleges will make themselves inaccessible to the common people. The DUTA urges the MHRD to review the recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission regarding autonomy of colleges as these violate the very principles on which public-funded higher education has been founded. Meanwhile, it appeals to the MHRD to withdraw its announcement immediately.
The DUTA has also learnt that the Chief Minister of Delhi, Smt. Shiela Dixit has announced her intention to convert the Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology (NSIT) into an independent Technological University. The DUTA rejects such a move as arbitrary. Instead of opening new institutions and expanding the public-funded higher education sector, the present Delhi Government has found it politically convenient to appropriate Delhi University’s colleges. This had happened in the case of The Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) in the past and the disastrous consequences of converting the DCE into the Delhi Technological University (DTU) is for everyone to see. Moreover, even in such cases the Delhi Government has never bothered to consult the teachers or the statutory bodies of Delhi University before embarking on such dubious initiatives. The DUTA is categorically opposed to such doomed-to-fail experiments in academics and will firmly resist any such attempt, on the part of the Delhi Government, to severe NSIT’s integral link to Delhi University.
Amar Deo Sharma S.D. Siddiqui
President, DUTA Secretary, DUTA
https://duta.live
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