Duta protest gets JNU, Jamia support

Teachers from Central varsities across the national capital, including JNU, Jamia Millia Islamia, Ignou and Ambedkar University, on Friday joined the ongoing agitation by Delhi University teachers in protest against the new University Grants Commission criteria to ascertain their performance.

The DU teachers have been boycotting the evaluation of undergraduate exams for last 11 days against amendments to the UGC regulations that, they argue, will lead to job-cuts to the tune of 50 per cent and will drastically change the pupil-teacher ratio in higher education.

The DU teachers have decided to continue the ev-aluation boycott till June 7. A consultation meeting will be held by the UGC with stakeholders, including representatives from teachers’ associations across the country, to discuss the issue on June 6.

Last week, the HRD ministry defended the new UGC criteria for academic performance indicators (API) for college and university teachers, saying it provides “more flexibility” even as it ruled out any possibility of reduction in number of teaching jobs. It had instructed the UGC to review the same.

Besides the JNU Teachers’ Association and the JNU Students’ Union, 14 other students organisations such as Aisa, CYSS, NEFIS, NSUI, SFI and DSU also joined the Duta-led protest.

“The sharp increase in the workload by excluding tutorials and counting only half the practicals in the teaching hours would lead to massive retrenchment and degradation in the quality of teaching, learning and research,” said Musser Ahmad from Jamia University Teachers’ Association at a joint press conference.

“The UGC amendment is an attack on academic freedom and creativity by the stipulation of publishing only in UGC-prescribed journals. This would adversely affect research in critical, non-mainstream areas, and could be used to manipulate content and suppress inconvenient and dissident voices,” IGNOUTA’s Prof. Ajay Mahurkar claimed.

“A fund-granting authority (UGC) had no right to effect unilateral changes in the number and proportion of lectures, tutorials and practical, as it constituted an attack on the academic autonomy of the universities.