DUTA Press Release on loss of Dr. Vijender Sharma – 12 August 2014

PRESS RELEASE: 12 August 2014

DUTA Grieves Loss of Former President, Dr. Vijender Sharma

The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) mourns the loss of its former President, Dr. Vijender Sharma who passed away after protracted illness on Saturday, 9 August 2014. Dr. Sharma was a stalwart of the nation-wide teachers’ movement and was active in his lifelong role as a critic and interlocutor of State Policy on Higher Education till the very end. He also lent his invaluable leadership to historic struggles of college and university teachers’ associations across the country. He had a formative influence on the DUTA.

Dr. Vijender Sharma combined rare academic and intellectual rigour with dogged activism to become an important functionary and leader of the DUTA. He served as President of the DUTA from 1995 to 1997. He also served the teaching community of Delhi University as an elected Member of the Academic Council from 1989 to 1994 and later, as an elected Member of the Executive Council from 2000 to 2004.

Trained in trade union activism while working at the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) in the early seventies, Dr. Sharma joined ARSD College as a Lecturer in Physics and Electronics in 1976. Soon after, he led the historic Temporary Teachers’ Movement in 1978-79 which resulted in the regularization of hundreds of teachers in the various colleges of the University. Since, then Dr. Sharma has played an integral role in the growth of the DUTA.

The teaching community of Delhi University also remembers him as an extraordinary teacher and academician who has several important research papers and text-books to his credit. He has also contributed to school education by penning Science text-books for NCERT. His all-round efforts towards sustaining quality, access and equity in public institutions of learning made him a formidable critic of the policy of Privatization in Education. He played a vital role in helping the DUTA formulate its extensive critiques of the pro-FDI Bills on Higher Education that were introduced by the previous Government but had to be shelved due to widespread opposition.

The DUTA has been left inconsolable at the untimely demise of Dr. Sharma as it is a part of his extended family. It extends its heartfelt condolences to his daughters and other family members who survive him even as it salutes his accomplishments as an ideal teacher-activist.

(NANDITA NARAIN)

President

(ANITA GHOSH)

Jt. Secretary