DUTA members protest outside Arts Faculty against retrospective implementation of API

Delhi University Teacher’s Association (DUTA) on Wednesday boycotted the evaluation centres and gathered at the Arts Faculty Gate, asking the University administration to withdraw retrospective implementation of Academic Performance Indicators (API) points system.

As per the contentious system, DU teachers are expected to accumulate requisite API points, which decide their terms of promotion from the year 2008. However, bizarrely, the API points and capping system did not come into existence before 2013.

“API was introduced in 2010, and after criticism from academicians, teacher’s associations and various unions, a committee was constituted to look into the matter. In 2014, the API and capping in research were introduced. In the amendments, the date of implementation was rolled back to 2008,” said Vijaya Venkatramana, a DUTA Executive member. Faced with the impossible task of gathering API points from 2008, DUTA, poking fun at the University administration, has asked for a “time machine so that they may go back in time and gather API points.”

“To get API points, even serious researchers will be forced to do substandard work. If an article has to be published in a high-end journal, the gestation period will take up to two years. But with this amount of pressure, researchers will have to get their work published within two weeks for the sake of points,” Venkatramana said.

The capping of API points into several categories has caused setting up unrealistic targets, leading to the worst kind of academic mediocrity, claimed DUTA members. Many teachers now have to spend time deliberating on consultancies and getting their research published.

“We have gone from the concept of collective growth into forcing individuals to concentrate on their own growth,” said Abha Dev Habib, former Secretary, Democratic Teachers’ Front.