Notwithstanding the protests by various student and teacher unions and the political pressure to roll back the four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP), the Academic Council of the Delhi University has not put the issue on the agenda of its forthcoming meeting on Saturday. According to sources, the Academic Council of the university will meet on June 21 to discuss the structure of the coming academic year but has no intention of discussing FYUP rollback.
The fact that the meeting was scheduled for Saturday raised hopes of many but in vain. Thus, the Delhi University Teachers Union (DUTA) has decided to hold a protest from 8.30 am on Saturday to push the members of the council to take up the issue of FYUP. A source said, “DUTA will be protesting from early morning against the meeting so that the members take up the real issue at hand. If even in spite of warnings from the University Grants Commission (UGC) the university administration doesn’t think that this issue is worth discussing then we have to make our mandate stronger.”
Meanwhile, student union Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) came up with a new tactic to draw the attention of the DU administration as they held a havan outside Arts Faculty on Monday ‘to enlighten the Vice-Chancellor of the university about the disadvantages of the four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) and get him to roll it back.’ They called the havan ‘V-C shuddhi buddhi yagya’ which was meant to drive the point through Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh. “We have to now rely on god to help us as the V-C doesn’t seem to understand any other language. Students are suffering and the administration is silent,” said Rohit Chahal, national secretary, ABVP.