DUTA Press Release: 25 October 2019

Teachers of Delhi University responded wholeheartedly to the call for a total university shutdown today. Various students’ organizations including AISA, CYSS, KYS and SFI supported the DUTA’s call.

The DUTA also held a dharna outside the Executive Council meeting which had been convened to discuss, among other matters, taking steps to implement the dubious scheme of Institutions of Eminence. The DUTA was constrained to resort to agitation by the fact that the university administration had initiated moves for getting Delhi University declared officially as an Institution of Eminence without consultation with teachers and without the prior approval of the Authorities of the University.

Of the various demands of the DUTA, two were under focus of today’s agitation: (1) a halt to any further steps required to become an Institution of Eminence under the UGC scheme that binds the future of the university to a path of self-financing and commercialisation of its activities paving the way for privatisation of education, a goal central to the proposed National Education Policy; (2) withdrawal of a circular issued by the University on 28th August 2019 which asks for appointments of teachers only on guest basis (payment on per lecture basis) against new full-time vacancies since such a step is both unjust and antithetical to quality teaching-learning.

Yesterday, the DUTA had written to the VC and the members of the Executive council a detailed critique of how the obligations imposed by the UGC Guidelines (Government Institutions of Eminence) 2017 would require the University to commit to enormous expenditure which the Government would not fund, to raise which the University would have to resort to exorbitant student fees and blatant commercial activities. The DUTA informed him of the concerns of the teaching community and its informed conclusion that the various steps initiated by the Government such as the Institutions of Eminence, the Graded Autonomy to Universities, Autonomous College scheme, switch from grants to loan based funding for infrastructure through grant of loan from the Higher Education Funding Agency (HEFA) are devices nudging universities towards commercialisation and privatisation. It specifically pointed out that the scheme of Institution of Eminence fits with the agenda of wholesale privatisation built into the proposed institutional restructuring and deregulating of education to liberalise education sector for commerce.

The DUTA had just concluded the first phase of its outreach programme during 22-24 October 2019, when teachers across colleges interacted with students to apprise them and seek their support against the privatisation agenda of the proposed New Education Policy threatening quality and equity at the same time. They also brought to the notice of students how the actions of the Government and the university administration, in tandem over the past decade, of not making large number of teachers permanent, denying permanent teachers promotions and depriving retiring teachers of pension is making the teaching profession unattractive for talent.

The DUTA warns the VC against acting as an agent of the Government and calls upon him to stand up as an academic and the head of an institution of repute. It calls upon him to withdraw the disastrous university circular of 28th August 2019. The DUTA will not allow full time teachers to be reduced to guest teachers. It will redouble its efforts to build a massive agitation by involving students, parents and concerned citizens in Delhi and across the country for absorption of temporary / ad hoc teachers, grant of promotion and restoration of pension. The response of the DUTA to diversionary provocations and fresh unjust steps by the administration will be to combine the struggle against these with the struggle against the proposed National Education Policy.

In this backdrop, the Vice-chancellor invited the DUTA officer bearers for a dialogue before the scheduled meeting of the Executive Council wherein the office bearers reiterated the above demands. The DUTA also appealed to the members of the Executive Council not to allow the University to succumb to the pressures of the Government.