7/28/2019 Join the Public Hearing on Fyup- You Have a Right to Know!

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Students, Parents and Every Citizen Have a Right to an Informed and Transparent

Assessment of the Additional Financial Burden and the Promises of Quality, Flexibility

and Greater Employability of the new Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP)

in DU

Join a Public Hearing

with teachers, educationists, students & parents

30 May, Arts Faculty Gate, DU North Campus,

11 amFYUP in DU marks a fundamental structural change - a tectonic shift in the framework of

higher education- which will have severe reverberations for the future of students across the

country. And yet, it is being invoked without allowing forany structured formal debate in any

national forum or UGC and not even within Delhi University itself. Concerns and issuesraised by the finest academic minds of the university and the country have been shoddily set

aside.

The two central claims of the VC about FYUP are of greater 'employability' and 'flexibility'.

However, even a cursory look at the proposed structure and course content would raise

several chilling questions about the future awaiting the student community.

Unlike the present structure of a Honours and a General Programme, under FYUP:

Every student will have to COMPULSORILY enter a Four Year Honours programme but

s/he will have the FLEXIBILITY or OPTION to leave at the end of two years with aDiploma, at the end of three with a Bachelor degree (without honours), and at the end of four

years with a Bachelor (Hons) degree!

In this scheme:

Two-year Diploma will involve : Only 8 Core Courses, 20 Non-Core Courses! So,the DU Diploma would be a Diploma in... WHICH subject?What is the value of such

a non-specialised 'Diploma' in the job market compared to more focussed Diploma from

other vocational institutes? Would such a DU Diploma not be seen by employers as a

'drop-out degree'?

Three Year Bachelor Degree will have Only 14 Main Core Courses and 28 Non-Core Courses, whereas students of other Universities will get a BA (Hons) Degree in

three years, with intensive training in their core discipline!

4 year Bachelor (Hons) degree will have Only 20 Core Courses out of a total of

50 Courses; whereas the earlier 3 Year Hons Degree Had 75% Core Courses!

Therefore, 4 year Hons Degree will mean MORE Time, MORE Money, LESS

Knowledge in the Honours subject. Why will such a delayed and diluted Hons.

degree make students more employable?

All in all, whether it is Diploma (in what one doesn't know) or a Bachelor (without

Hons) or an Hons Bachelor degree,at every stage, majority (60-70%) of the courses

will be a wild assortment of unrelated, non-core, often school-level subjects whileonly 30-40% of the courses will be the Core subject for which students took admission

7/28/2019 Join the Public Hearing on Fyup- You Have a Right to Know!

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under FYUP! With such a huge gap between the intent (nomenclature) and content,

what will be the real worth of the degree itself? Can such systematic erosion of

focussed training and knowledge enhance employability? Doesn't such heavy and

disproportionate bundle of COMPULSORY non-core courses make the FYUP

more rigid rather than flexible as claimed by the VC?

Further, in the absence of any UGC guideline, how will the FYUP students prove the

worth and 'equivalence' of their multiple-level diploma/degree while seekingadmission in other universities operating with 10+2+3 scheme? Who will compensate

them for this impending crisis?

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 an increased financial burden for the additional year. Isn't it obvious then, that

FYUP will further discourage 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.

Recently, DU has been conducting Open House sessions for new entrants: but student and

parents have all seen the administrations 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.

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

implemented, five eminent scholars -scientist Yash Pal, historian Romila Thapar,

authorU R Ananthamurthy, poet and former chairman of Lalit Kala Akademi Ashok

Vajpeyiand critic Namvar Singhhave made a powerful appeal :

.. 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 nationalpolicy and adequate discussion that such a revision would require. We urge the

Government of India and the President of India, who is also the Visitor of Delhi

University, to intervene without further delay and save the lives of lakhs of young

men and women from being manipulated through an ill-conceived educationalexperiment. (TOI, May 25)

It is in this backdrop, we appeal to you to join a Public hearing with Teachers and

Educationists, Students and Parents is being organised on 30 May at the Arts' faculty

Gate of DU North campus from 11 am.

We must all recognise that education is not commodity like a TV or a refrigerator. A bad

consumer good may cause some monetary loss but still it can be replaced. We cannot replacea bad education acquired by spending years and money - it becomes an irreplaceable burden

which cannot be compensated for!

Sunny Kumar, All India Students' Association (AISA) 9213974505

Uma Gupta, Left and Democratic Teachers' Forum (LDTF) 986803422