Delhi University’s Four Year Undergraduate Programme was designed to train students into a skilled workforce for a globalised era. Now that it has been scrapped, the vision of a resurgent India has suffered a tremendous setback
The term ‘collaboration of convenience’ well explains the ideologically opposed Democratic Teachers’ Front and the National Democratic Teachers Front which have come together to indulge in a misplaced sense of euphoria over the rollback of Delhi University’s Four Year Undergraduate Programme. Ideally, they should have lamented the overt and avoidable onslaught on the autonomy of Delhi University.
Those familiar with this debate know that universities are fully autonomous on issues of academic consequences. On matters of service conditions and funding, the University Grants Commission’s guidelines are mandatory. On academic issues, statutory bodies of the university are mandated by Parliament to take decisions as they are well-equipped to cater to the best interests of the students.
Given the well-defined roles of the UGC and the universities, the former’s diktat to scrap FYUP tantamounts to blatant violation of DU’s autonomy. Also, the UGC’s decision to go to the media with a public notice to warn students against taking admission under FYUP was ridiculous and bizarre.
Slandering of this kind of a premier institution like DU, apart from openly undermining the university’s autonomy, is as much an act of brazen but completely unacceptable interference as is the promise of a rollback of an academic programme in the manifesto of a political party.
No political culture in any part of the civilised world can afford to politicise higher education in such an irresponsible way. Nor can any world class university be subjected to the sort of political interference which has made DU buckle under the pressure of UGC’s directive, obviously at the behest of the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development.
The argument given to justify the diktats and the bizarre public notice in national dailies was that DU was running an ‘illegal’ programme without the consent of the Visitor (the President). The UGC also said that the programme violated the National Policy for Education which stipulates 10+2+3 structure. Both arguments are preposterous and obnoxious.
There is a particular procedure to issue an Ordinance and get an approval for the same in Delhi University. First, the Academic Council and then the Executive Council pass the proposed academic plan. The day the latter passes it, the Ordinance comes into force with immediate effect, as it happened in FYUP’s case.
The Visitor is formally informed thereafter, and his approval sought. An objection or even a disapproval comes within a month. Otherwise, the Ordinance is deemed to be approved. Within the university system, all major stakeholders are aware of this convention. The question, therefore, about whether DU had an approval for the FYUP that had the signature of the Visitor, was an attempt to misinform the teaching community, the media and the civil society.
As far as the required conformity to the NPE is concerned, there were multiple exits under the FYUP. The students could have opted to out after three years of education with a Bachelor degree. The fourth year under FYUP was optional and designed to hone the research skills of undergraduate students and bring them at par with the best and the brightest students of other performing universities.
Having said that, it needs to be underlined that an archaic, obsolete NPE serves no purpose. It can’t be sacrosanct as changing socio-economic and educational circumstances vehemently demand an updated NPE in the interest of the students.
The silent majority of teachers as well as students and their parents will readily agree that DU needed, and again urgently needs, to initiate innovative reforms since the three-year undergraduate programme does not impart the kind of skills and knowledge which can enable the young to survive successfully in a competitive global environment.
FYUP opponents will lose nothing if acknowledge that it is this requirement of the moment that propelled both public and private universities situated in and around Delhi to embrace FYUP so willingly.
DU has enough potential to pioneer this sort of reforms. Instead, it will now have to play catch-up with the rest of the world. Whose interests will be served if DU lags behind private institutions in giving its students a cutting-edge curriculumIJ Particularly with the loss of the professional courses that were made available almost free of cost (compared to private universities), it is the economically weaker students that will bear the brunt. But those who claim to speak for the poor are busy celebrating the so-called victory they have achieved with the rollback of FYUP.
The way DTF, joined by NDTF later, has behaved during the FYUP saga betrays an illogical nostalgia for an academic programme which has not delivered despite many chances to establish its worth in a globalised world. Since an undergraduate programme primarily meant to develop skills that will make students employable has been scrapped, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of skill development for the youth has received a tremendous setback. The contradiction between the vision of a vibrant India and political practice of the kind we have witnessed will not help this country. Instead, the lack of a skilled workforce, will take India miles away from the standards of global competitiveness.
Victor Hugo had said, “Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come”. This is applicable to the idea called FYUP. An institution as well as a nation can afford to ignore it only at their own peril.