College students, teachers protest against privatisation of varsities
NEW DELHI: Massive outrage erupted on the streets of the Capital, as nearly 10,000 students and teachers turned up for a march to the Parliament, called by the Federation of Central Universities’ Teachers’ Association (FEDCUTA) and Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) on Wednesday.
The march was called against the University Grant Commission (UGC) and HRD Ministry’s decision to grant autonomy to 60 universities, including five central universities.
“The autonomy is nothing more than financial autonomy, by which the central government wants universities to arrange for their own funds,” said protesting professors from several universities, including DU, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Aligarh Muslim University, among others.
“They are essentially granting financial autonomy, that is, they are telling the universities that the grants they were getting will be scrapped and the universities will now have to arrange for their own finances,” Sudhanshu Kumar, vice-president, DUTA, said.
“To generate funds, the universities will have no choice but to charge students, placing humongous financial burden on the students,” said DU faculty member Aditya Narayan Misra, adding that “This pronouncement is a policy hoax”.
“The so-called Graded Autonomy is government commandments for privatisation of higher education. These regulations seek to implement the government’s will to privatise existing public-funded institutions and to encourage de-novo private institutions,” added Misra.
The protesters also demanded scrapping of the Higher Education Financing Authority (HEFA). Kumar said, “After HEFA has been established, universities will not get grants, but loans.”
“This means every university will have to open an escrow account. The principal amount, as per the new rules, will be paid by the institutions while HEFA will just be paying interest,” added Misra.
Addressing the gathering, CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat said education policies of the Modi government intends to end reservations in higher education. “This is done by those people who talk about progress in the society. Government is trying to destroy top universities and such effort will end social justice,” Karat said
Commenting about the autonomy given to universities, she said that autonomy given to universities is to ensure that they start courses that fetch more money and give reservation to foreign students.