Press Release on VC’s Meetings with College Principals
The DUTA expresses anger and dismay at the manner in which the VC and his team of officials in the DU Administration have sought to humiliate college principals and terrorize teachers in the recently concluded round of meetings. While principals were curtly asked to use the controversial and draconian Code of Conduct to silence criticism and dissent against the FYUP and suppress any discussion or questioning, the administration deliberately ignored the concerns raised by principals on infrastructural and logistical issues related to the distribution of DC-II courses and Application courses. Offensive and undignified language was used by the officials against many principals in presence of other teachers, during the meetings. The DUTA is concerned that such a situation, if allowed to pass unnoticed, will end up destroying the spirit of collegiality and mutual trust with which the colleges of the University have been functioning so far.
It is a fact that colleges across Delhi University have inadequate infrastructure to bear the burden of all the courses in FYUP; yet the university has continued to remain unconcerned. On the other hand, the Administration has sought to concentrate all powers of decision-making in its own hands by sending random flying squads to various colleges on the pretext of curbing absenteeism and monitoring the FYUP classes. Among teachers and students, these flying squads have acquired the reputation of the Gestapo and secret police employed by fascist regimes in history. The DUTA has also learnt that these squads openly incite students and principals against teachers who have been vocal against the FYUP. To top it, principals present in the meeting were informed that all academic decision-making will hereafter be the prerogative of a new FYUP Secretariat which will function from the Vice Regal Lodge building which also houses the VC’s office. Such a secretariat has no statutory sanction and is purely an extension of the VC’s own high-handed desire to micromanage all the affairs of the University. The DUTA condemns this unprecedented centralization in the strongest terms and appeals to the academic community to collectively resist such tyranny.
The DUTA warns the Vice Chancellor to desist from pitting principals, teachers and students against each other as such a strategy is bound to destroy the university and drag its prestige and reputation to the mud. Instead, it hopes that good sense will eventually persuade the Vice Chancellor to objectively analyze the widespread students’ discontent against this ill-conceived academic restructuring, as has been reflected in much of the feedback collected by the University itself, and do a rethink on the FYUP.
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