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Four Year Undergraduate Programme:

In Whose Interest Is It All?

Join Teachers, Educationists, Students and Parents in a

Public Hearing

30 May 2013, Arts Faculty, North Campus, DU, 11 a.m. onwardDear students and friends,

At the current moment, Delhi University is caught in a tremendous crisis. On the one hand, the DU

administration is hurriedly forcing through the Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP). On the

other hand, students, teachers, intellectuals and all those concerned with education are opposing it. The DU

administration has declared that all students taking admission in DU will enter a four year honours degree.

Within this FYUP scheme, if students wish they can leave at the end of two years with a Diploma or at the

end of three with a Bachelor degree (without honours). It is only at the end of four years that they can leave

with a Bachelor (Hons) degree. The Vice Chancellor states that the new programme allows for greater

flexibility, and will generate greater employability; but this is quite far from the truth. To understand the

new scheme better, let us look at what will be taught under FYUP.

Number of

Courses under

each area

Diploma and

degree

Foundation

Courses

(compulsory

commonsensical

courses)

Discipline I

(Core subject

/ major)

Discipline II

(Second

subject /

minor)

Applied

Courses

Integrated

Mind, Body

Heart /

Cultural

Activities

Courses

Two YearDiploma

11 08 02 03 04

Three Year

Bachelor degree

11 14 04 05 06

Four Year

Bachelor (Hons)

degree

11 20 06 05 08

Will the FYUP, with the above course content and its multiple exit options truly make students more

employable? Will it help them get better jobs or give them extra advantage in choosing future academic

options? Let us look at some of the facts:(1) The students who obtain a Two Year Diploma will study only 8 papers from their core/ main

discipline. The remaining 20 courses will be compulsory, extremely basic, mostly school-level (the

foundation courses). Such a two-year diploma would offer no specialization since the student will have

studied only 8 papers from the core discipline. Would such a DU Diploma have any value in the job market

when contrasted with specialized diplomas (such as NIIT diplomas in computer languages andprogramming)? No, because the DU diploma offers no focus on a core discipline at all unlike diplomas

offered elsewhere. So, in contrast to the claims of providing more employment, a diploma -holder fromDU will actually be at a disadvantage when compared to a specialised diploma holder from another institute.

(2) If the student chooses to complete the three year Bachelor degree, s/he will merely study 14 main

discipline courses. The remaining 28 courses will be an wild assortment of applied courses, subsidiarycourses,cultural activities,and school-level foundation courses. We know, that from the +2 level in

school itself, students have already begun to specialize by choosing their streams. What will they gain by

repeating in college, the basics of each subject (which they have already been taught in school up to

class 10)? Further, when compared with students from other universities who acquire an Honours

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degree in the same number of years; how will they stand a chance, let alone an edge in the jobmarket? It is also obvious that when compared to the old three year programme course, they will not get a

comparable amount of knowledge in their core discipline. While students under the old three year

programme could enter a Masters programme in any of their core subjects, how will the DU students

with inadequate specialization be able to pursue a Masters without completing their fourth year?

(3) The student who completes all four years and obtains a Bachelor (Hons) degreewill have to do 50

courses of which only 20 will be from his/her core discipline. The remaining 30 courses will be

applied courses, cultural activities, subsidiary courses and school-level foundation courses. I n spite ofhaving spent both time and money on an extra year, these students will have less knowledge of their core

disciplinethan earlier students who had acquired an Honours Degree in three years.Not only are they

spending an extra year with no evident academic advantage, it is also not clear what job opportunities will

open up exclusively for them.

Subsequently, if a student wishes to do an MA, DU has decided (although the decision has not yet been

implemented) to let them do a one-year MA on the basis of credit transfers of the 4th year of FYUP. The

real issue of concern here is, even if the DU Administration recognises credit equivalence between the

4th year of Bachelor (Hons) and the 1st year of MA, we need to ask whether such technical credit point

equivalence from the undergraduate programme can actually be the substitute of the quality of Post-Graduate class room teaching and learning that a student will acquire in course of a 2 years full-fledged

Masters programme? Another concern is, if the student has to pursue an MA from another university,

s/he will still have to study for full two years in MA, because the UGC does not have any system of

equivalence in place to suit the specificity of FYUP students.

Thus on all counts, the claims that FYUP will bring greater academic rigour, flexibility and

employment, do not have any credible basis.DUs Vice-Chancellor claims that a currently, a large part ofthe student body drops out without finishing their education and getting their degree. In the proposed

FYUP, students have the option to exit at the end of two and three years, with a Diploma and a Bachelordegree. However, what the VC is hiding is the danger that soon the job-market may treat the 2year/

3year certificates coming out of a 4 year programme as drop out degrees.Isnt it a real possibility that

the students, who have chosen to exit at two and three years, be seen in the job-market as those who were

unable to or did not possess the competence to complete the Four Year Programme? In the name ofemployability and quality, this method of providing Multiple Exit Points is just another way of

institutionalising drop-outs.No student will actually be better off even in the job market from these

multiple exit points.

On the contrary, in a situation where a common student has to spend annually Rs. 1-1.5 lakh annually

to fend for college fees and other living costs of rent, food and transport, 4 year will place the

increased financial burden for the additional year. Needless to say, this will further discourage the

students who are already economically and socially disadvantaged (particularly the SC/ST/

OBC/PH/Minorities/Women students) to carry on with the Honours programme and force them to settle for

the drop-out degrees.

Erosion of Teaching-Learning

1) Training in Academic Writing: Under the previousthree year programme, all students had to write

three assignments and one project per paper, allowing them to develop greater analytical and research skills.In the new FYUP, students will not be requi red to submi t even one written assignment; instead, they will

have one group class presentation per course. In such a situation, how is any student going to be able to

develop abilities in analysis or research?

2) The total number of teaching weeks have been reduced from 16 to 14. Where in the old system, perunit there would be 2 classes a week as well as tutorials, in the new scheme there will be only 1 class per

unit per week. Further, so much teaching time will now be wasted in the fruitless compu lsory foundationcourses which could have been better spent on the core discipline. How can any student special ise in any

discipl ine if s/he spends more time on unwanted compulsory courses rather than necessary main courses?

Until now, Delhi University was known throughout the country for its rigorous, affordable, and high-

quality education. The FYUP which will replace DUs earlier programmes is entirely lacking inacademic quality and rigour, and unsuitable for employment and further studies as well. Recently,

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DU has been conducting Open House sessions for new entrants: but student and parents have all seen theadministrations total refusal to answer any questions on the FYUP. The administration has gone so far

as to say there are other universities in the city please join them. At a moment when students have so

many doubts and queries the DU administration is not answering them, because it has no answers . We

must all recognise that education is not commodity like a T.V. or a refrigerator. A bad consumer good may

cause some monetary loss but still it can be replaced. We cannot replace a bad education acquired by

spending years and money - it becomes an irreplaceable burden which cannot be compensated for!

Friends, universities in a developing country like ours are duty-bound to educate students with duerigor, enhance their critical thinking ability and also help erase the various social and economicinequities that exist in our society.The FYUP fails on all these counts. Instead, it seeks to dismantle a

premier university and reframes its programmes to reinforce existing social and economic divisions by

depriving students of their educational rights for better jobs and academic future. That a publicly funded,

central university is being permitted to be so irresponsible is both deeply saddening and shameful.

Deeply alarmed at the content and structure of the FYUP and the roughshod manner it is being

implemented, several noted academics, writers and intellectuals publicly expressed their

concern.Five eminent scholars - scientist Yash Pal, historian Romila Thapar, author U R

Ananthamurthy, poet and former chairman of Lalit Kala Akademi Ashok Vajpeyiand critic Namvar

Singhhas made a powerful appeal to the government and President of India, who is also the Visitor ofthe Delhi University:

We are distressed to hear that despite protests by senior scholars and public intellectuals, theministry of human resource development (MHRD) and the UGC have decided to maintain distance

from the conflict afflicting in DU... In our view, this decision is tantamount to abdication ofresponsibility. Autonomy does not give licence to any institution, let alone a university, to treat

the education of young people in a cavalier fashion...

The four-year course that DU is determined to implement goes beyond the National Policy on

Education (1986) as it violates the 10+2+3 structure mandated by the policy. DU cannot be

allowed to proceed with its new course without revision of the national policy and adequate

discussion that such a revision would require.. They urged the govt to intervene and save thelives of lakhs of young men and women from being manipulated through an ill-conceived

educational experiment. (TOI, May 25)

We ask all citizens concerned about education, equality and democracy to seriously consider what purpose

will be served by the disastrous anti-student, anti-academic reforms initiated under the FYUP in DelhiUniversity. Our University, Our F uture! Aff ordable education! Quali ty! Social I nclusion! Equali ty!

LDTF AISA

(Left Democratic Teachers Forum) (All India Students' Association)

Contact: 9868034224, 9868337493 Contact: 9213974505, 9013219020