Daulat Ram College revives foreign language courses
After a week-long controversy over foreign language courses, Daulat Ram College has finally resumed its position as a centre for the same, but in an ill-equipped manner. This decision was made by the governing body of the college in spite of the principal’s repeated requests to have the courses scrapped due to lack of infrastructure.
Principal Dr Daya Aggarwal had earlier said that the infrastructure could not sustain foreign language courses as there was no place for students to sit and study. However, the chairperson of the college Suneeta Sudarshan called off the decision during an emergent governing body meeting stating that the reasons for scrapping the add-on foreign language courses were “illegitimate”.
According to Aggarwal, there are no free classrooms for add-on courses as there is an increase in the number of periods per day. “The chairperson insisted that these courses be taught from 4 pm to 6 pm. However, our regular classes would now be on till 5.30 pm which leaves the college with no empty classrooms to conduct the foreign language classes. I put forward this problem, but there was no cognizance taken of it,” said Aggarwal.
She further alleged that she was not kept in the loop while implementing this change and is not sure how the courses will fit it in the curriculum. “With the FYUP, the number of classes has increased. From this year we had to add an extra period so that the Discipline-II courses can be accommodated as well. However, the chairperson feels that the addition of an extra period is only to avoid the additional responsibility of add-on courses. We don’t want to compromise on the quality of education we are imparting and that’s what we are being made to do,” she said.