Delhi univ: Final seal of approval for FYUP’S return

The merits of FYUP are not clear. Why should students pay for an extra year...?

ASHOK AGARWAL,

Advocate

NEW DELHI: Delhi University’s executive council (EC), the varsity’s highest decision-making body, on Tuesday passed a slew of academic reforms ratified by the academic council last week, including reintroducing the four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP), which was scrapped in 2014 amid protests by teachers and students, and moves to implement the 2020 National Education Policy (NEP) from next year.

Further, the university will also scrap Mphil from next year -- as per the NEP 2020 provisions -- and offer one- and two-year PG programmes from next year. “The one-year PG programme will be for students who have opted for four-year UG course. Students with three-year UG programme can opt for a twoyear postgraduate programme from next academic session,” said EC member VS Negi.

Three of the 20 members in the EC disagreed with the proposals on implementing Nepbased reforms on Tuesday.

“NEP is blueprint for privatisation and commercialisation of education, its implementation in DU will lead to destruction of leading public funded universities of India… It will adversely affect the workload of teachers leading to further contractualisation and retrenchment of teaching faculties,” said the dissent note issued by the three members. Advocate Ashok Agarwal, one of the EC members who dissented, said it was “unfortunate” that a major restructuring was passed without responding to important issues raised by the members.

“The merits of FYUP are not clear. Why should students pay for an additional year if the in-depth study of a discipline in a four-year UG course remains what it is today in a three-year undergraduate honours course,” he said. However, Negi, who is a member of the right-wing teachers’ group National Teachers’

Democratic Front, pointed out that the NEP was “passed by the AC and accepted by the EC”. “It is an avenue for expansion of higher education, aiming at an increase in gross enrolment ratio by introducing flexibility in the curriculum. It has enough time for preparation and implementation of the Nep-based provisions. Workload, funding and expansion issues are there and the university should be vigilant in implementing NEP in such a way that the number of teaching positions and funding is safe.”

In 2013, the university had introduced FYUP but following stiff opposition and protest from students and teachers, it was eventually rolled back in 2014. On August 24, the university’s academic council passed -- amid dissent from 16 elected representatives -- the agenda to start FYUP along with multiple entryexit scheme (MEES) and academic bank of credits (ABC) from the next academic session.

Under the FYUP programme, interested applicants will be allowed to choose from three UG options next year: a three-year honours programme, a four-year honours in a discipline or a fouryear honours in a discipline with research. The MEES-ABC combination will allow students to exit the course at the end of any academic year with credits in their “academic bank account” and later redeem those credits to pursue the course at any other university which comes under the ambit of the ABC system.

Meanwhile, DUTA held an online demonstration to protest against the e-learning promoted through these reforms.