left-affiliated Democratic Teachers’ Front (DTF) candidate Nandita Narain, who won the presidential elections of the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA), is planning to launch a massive campaign against implementation of the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) and immediate appointment of ad hoc teachers in permanent posts. The Mathematics professor of St Stephen’s College defeated rival Ashwini Shankar of Deshbandhu College, an AAD-INTECH candidate, by 786 votes.
Narain said they had already expressed their objection over the four-year UG programme and will again send a letter to Delhi University Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh next week, urging him to discontinue the course since it is affecting the quality of academia. “For the past three years, the Vice Chancellor did not upgrade any ad hoc teacher to a permanent post. We will urge him to appoint 4,500 teachers to permanent posts through legally constituted selection committees,” she added. The DTF is also against the entry of foreign universities and it will appeal to the Union HRD Ministry to not allow entry of any foreign university into India.
The DTF is also against the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model in higher education envisaged by the National Knowledge Commission of the Government of India. “We will again appeal to the Vice Chancellor and his team to create an atmosphere of trust and goodwill so that DUTA can contribute constructively to higher education,” Narain said. The DTF members said that they will appeal to the
V-C to amend the ordinance for appointment of Principals as well. According to them, the ordinance for appointment of a Principal should be amended in line with UGC regulations that stipulate a five-year term for the post. Narain maintained that this mandate had justified the teachers’ movement against the policies of DU’s V-C. The FYUP was implemented without any consultation.
Three candidates in the fray for DUTA presidential post — Pramod C Sharma of Kirori Mal College, Shiba C Panda of Satyawati College, Ashwini Shankar of AAD-INTECH — received 818, 561 and 1,919 votes respectively. Fifteen other executive council members were also elected from various teacher’s groups for which 22 candidates were in the running.
Out of the 15 executive council members, four are from DTF, five from AAD-INTECH and three from AAD. Some of the prominent members are Saikat Ghosh, English teacher at SGTB Khalsa College; Vijay Venkatraman, Spanish teacher in the Department of GRS;
Dr Bhupinder Chaudhury, History teacher at Maharaja Agrasen College; Dr Dev Kumar, Hindi teacher at Rajdhani College. The council will now choose the Vice President, Secretary, Joint Secretary and Treasurer from among its members. Of the total 6,474 votes cast, 471 were found invalid.