DUTA has launched its protest against the recent UGC Gazette Notification that will lead to loss of about 50% of teaching posts across the country. In DU alone, 5000 temporary, ad-hoc, guest lecturers will be facing the prospect of losing employment. The steep increase in direct teaching hours and huge increase in student-teacher ratio will also lead to an irreparable loss in quality, with tutorials being made optional and practicals devalued. This disastrous move has clearly been prompted by the steep cut in Govt grant to the UGC to the tune of 55%!
The first phase of the protest is a four-day Evaluation Boycott starting tomorrow. Evaluation for undergraduate courses is going on at 13 Centres viz MH, KM, Hansraj, Daulat Ram, Gargi, Kalindi, Deshbandhu, ARSD, Sri Venkateswara, Maitreyi, Dyal Singh, Keshav Mahavidyalaya, and in PG course in the various Departments. In course of the DUTA campaign, teachers at these centres expressed their anger and resentment at the draconian provisions of the Notification that threaten to destroy public funded Universities and Colleges. Meanwhile, Staff Associations of Colleges are having their meetings and sending resolutions of solidarity to the DUTA. The Staff Association of SRCC marched to the DUTA Office today to express its solidarity with the action programmes to demand withdrawal of this retrograde Notification. JMC, MH, Rajdhani, Hansraj etc have already passed resolutions condemning the Notification and supporting the DUTA. An extended Executive meeting will be held on Friday, where the Office Bearers of various Staff Associations will place their resolutions. This will be followed by a General Body meeting of the DUTA on Saturday, 28th May, to review the situation and announce the future action programme.
We appeal to the Government to withdraw the pernicious Notification, make the recommendations of the Nigavekar Committee public and initiate a dialogue with teachers’ associations on them. If they fail to respond to the demands of teachers, they will be squarely responsible for the disruption of normal academic activities in the University.
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