DUTA Appeal to DUSU, college students’ unions, students’ organizations and students for support against Tripartite MoU
Dear students,
Teachers and students of DU have shown exceptional solidarity this year in fighting back the Government’s repeated attempts to cut Funding. An unprecedented gathering of 15000 teachers and students participated in the DUTA’s People’s March on 28 March 2018 to force the Government to withdraw the 70:30 Funding Formula. We salute students for making the struggle successful.
What confronts us now is another device that the Government has employed called the Tripartite MoU, which has to be signed between every central university, the MHRD and the UGC. The Tripartite MoU is part of the policy onslaught aimed at restructuring universities as they exist and to shift the burden of maintaining and expansion of public funded universities on students. Reduced government funding is bound to adversely impact recruitment, promotions and research.
The MoU allows the Government to bypass the UGC and take arbitrary funding decisions. Under the MoU, universities would commit to incremental hikes in student-fees (“user charges”) and to raise extra-mural funds for research from corporate sources in the private sector. Institutions are required to commit to steadily increase student intake without any promise of grants needed for commensurate expansion of infrastructure and teaching and non-teaching staff, a requisite to maintain quality. Universities would be forced to take infrastructural loans through the Higher Education Funding Authority (HEFA), a corporate body that raises money for loans from capital markets and private investment. These loans can only be secured by mortgaging the land and infrastructure of the university and colleges as collaterals. As a result, institutions would be forced to hike fees in order to pay back these loans.
Parameters for Equity i.e. equal opportunities for women and underprivileged, reservations for backward castes and marginalised peoples, learning and research facilities for students and teachers with special needs, hostels, housing, health facilities etc. find no mention in the Performance Evaluation Targets. The drive to cut costs will compel universities to ignore these vital obligations, to meet the targets set by the MHRD.
Many central universities like JNU, BHU, HCU, AMU, Vishwa Bharati and Central University of Haryana have already signed this MoU. But DU continues to resist this. While hundreds of students and teachers participated in the DUTA Protest programme on 27 September 2018 at the VC Office, when the Executive Council was meeting to discuss the MoU, elected teacher representatives and members from the Court opposed it in the meeting. As a result, the matter has been deferred for wider consultation.
The DUTA is organising a Protest Rally on Wednesday, 10 October from Mandi House to Parliament Street against the Tripartite MoU. We shall assemble at Mandi House at 12 noon. We appeal to DUSU, College students’ unions, students’ organisations and students to participate in the action programme.
The Protest Rally will also highlight issues pertaining to Reservation Roster for teaching posts and service conditions of teachers.
At a time when more and more students are aspiring to education as a means for better employment opportunities, starving public funded institutions will reduce opportunities for students, especially those from socially and economically marginalized sections. Downgrading of teaching profession is forcing many to look for better opportunities elsewhere.
The DUTA firmly believes that the movement to protect public funded higher education can be won only if students, parents, teachers and karmcharis become equal partners in these struggles.
Regards,Rajib Ray, President
Vivek Chaudhary, Secretay
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