SOLTA PROTESTS TO DEMAND JUSTICE
School of Open Learning Teachers Association (SOLTA) staged protest dharna today in the School of Open Learning (SOL) campus against the anti-student and anti-teacher attitude of SOL administration and its gross mismanagement of college affairs resulting in serious administrative and financial irregularities of which a few are listed below.
1. Students are yet to receive printed study materials which has happened for the first time in the 55 years history of the institution. Students are at a loss and suffering. The PG students were issued photo copies of the materials only a week before their semester examination.
2. The Personal Contact Programme (PCP) committee consisting of teachers of SOL submitted its recommendations to start contact classes for students in October 2017. But the administration paid no heed to the same and no PCP classes have commenced yet for the students. PCP classes are outsourced and internal faculty members have been kept away from the programme in which they had been involved since the inception of the institution. The link between the internal faculty, students and external resource persons has been broken thus creating chaos in the teaching and learning process.
3. Due to chaos and confusion in PCP, the students have suffered as is evident from the steady downhill trend in the results published by the examination branch. The issue has been raised in the media as well.
4. Crores of Rupees have been spent on PCP to grant undue favour to the Principals of different colleges where PCP is running without adhering to any financial rules of the University and despite recommendations from CAG to review the process. Earlier internal faculty were conducting classes as part of their responsibility without charging extra money.
5. The Staff Council has been made redundant and the teachers are completely alienated from the decision-making process.
6. No study centre for the students has been constructed yet at Tahirpur even though more than a decade has passed since the DDA allotted land free of cost for the purpose. This has resulted in penalties.
SOLTA President J. Khuntia said that the School of Open Learning has been converted to School Closed for Learning as students’ interest has been compromised by not giving them study materials and contact classes in time. SOLTA Secretary K.B Gupta said that the SOL administration has totally mismanaged the personal contact programme.
DUTA President Rajib Ray led the teachers’ delegation to meet the Chairman and Director Campus of Open Learning Prof C.S Dubey and demanded justice for students and teachers. Other members present were: EC member Rajesh Jha, DUTA Office Bearers Vivek Chaudhury, Sudhanshu Kumar and Najma Rehmani, DUTA Executive Members Surendra Kumar, Ashok Yadav, Vishwa Raj Sharma, Pradeep Kumar Singh, Biswajit Mohanty, Prem Chand and AC members Pankaj Garg and Shashi Shekhar along with teachers of SOL as well as other DUTA activists.
| J. Khuntia President, SOLTA |
K. B Gupta Secretary, SOLTA |
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