Representatives of various Central Universities on Saturday met with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to oppose the Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS) which is scheduled to implemented in the upcoming 2015-16 academic session. According to former DUTA president Dr Aditya Narayan Mishra, they have conveyed to the Congress vice-president that with the implementation of CBCS system, the Delhi University (DU) will not be having its core academic value as the syllabus of DU will be taught in other universities of country.
“The proposed CBCS is a blatant attempt by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the University Grant Commission (UGC) to compromise the autonomy of universities by denying them the right to formulate their own syllabus and to decide on their academic affairs through democratic forums such as Academic Council and the Executive Council,” said Mishra to Gandhi.
Reacting to the issue, Rahul immediately tweeted about the problem. According to the DUTA members, Rahul assured them that he is against centralisation of power and will remain with teachers’ association on the CBCS issue. The Academic Council (AC) has said that CBCS together with the Common Central Universities Act is a virulent attempt to establish the hegemony of bureaucracy in academia as the Supreme Council of the Vice-Chancellor and a bureaucrat of the rank of Joint Secretary will prevail over the Executive Council without its elected members. With the universities loosing their democratic fabric and the right to formulate a syllabus, the alarming recent developments appear to suggest that a covert attempt is being made to promote commercialisation and privatisation of higher education.