DUTA Press Release reg. UGC for pushing NEP in this hour of crisis: 22.5.2021

It is extremely shocking that the UGC has, on 20.5.2021, brought out a notification allowing HEIs to teach upto 40% of syllabus of each course (other than SWAYAM course) through online mode and the remaining 60% syllabus of the concerned courses to be taught in the offline mode. This unacademic and ill-timed recommendation will erode the autonomy of HIEs and teachers further. This move towards online education will ensure that a large number of students from underprivileged families or rural areas with limited internet access and computer devices will be denied access to quality education.

The concept note turns students into customers and uses fancy clauses like “pick teachers and timings”, “frame your courses”, “design your degree”, “student centric” and so on and so forth. Such dubious and meaningless clauses mask the ulterior reality of the move towards dismantling public education in the country.

The Draft ABC Regulations, SWAYAM Regulations notified in March 2021 and now this circular, aim at reducing expenditure towards public funded higher education in the garb of “students’ choice”. These policy documents do not take any responsibility of the quality of the degree in terms of their meaningful composition and of employability. While the SWAYAM  Regulations made it mandatory for Universities to allow 40% of the credits to be collected from taking online courses, the 20.5.2021 Notification wants to further erode the education experience and rigour by allowing 40% of each paper taught to be covered through online mode! Use of SWAYAM/MOOCs as the repository of courses for distance learning is one thing but to use them to empty out regular education is unacceptable. Our experience of online teaching of over a year tells us that it is highly unequal and inadequate. Class-rooms cannot be replaced. Online teaching-learning reduces human interactions and truncates learning.

A clear objective behind these policies is to reduce the need to hire teachers! This notification hence puts in immediate jeopardy the future of over 4500 adhoc teachers working in DU and will have disastrous consequences for the classroom experience for students. The teachers collective will resist this anti-student, anti-education move.

When universities, like other sectors, are mourning the loss of lives of teachers and eminent scholars, and students are facing unparalleled tragedies of loss of family members to COVID, the UGC is more interested in pushing for the implementation of NEP rather than bring in measures to alleviate the human tragedy that is playing out in the country. It is utterly shocking and insensitive that instead of working out relief for employees and students, the UGC and MoE are busy pushing the agenda of privatization through NEP.

Ever since the pandemic has started, students and various agencies including the DUTA have requested the UGC to start scholarships for students who have lost their parents or where the family has lost employment. The DUTA has also reminded the UGC that employees covered under NPS do not have death gratuity and has demanded compensation for those who have died of COVID. The UGC and MoE are yet to take any real measures needed by Universities at this hour. Recently, the students have been appealing for cancellation of examinations for terminal semester students in the face of the prevailing crisis, but the UGC and MoE have shown that the “system” does not really care for students.

At this juncture, the UGC and MoE need to focus on the crisis and possible measures to bring relief. Such notifications and the NEP itself should be subjected to wider scrutiny and consultation and not be thrust upon educational institutions in this manner.