New Delhi: The mid term exam schedule of Delhi University (DU) has been disrupted badly due its teachers deciding to go on strike on Saturday i.e. January 16, 2010. Majority of the colleges, including Sri Ram College of Commerce, Kirori Mal, Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Sri Venkateswara, Zakir Hussain, Satyawati, Arobindo, have decided to postpone their exams due to the protest. However, the exam schedule in a few colleges like Daulat Ram College remains undecided. These colleges would wait for the teachers to take a decision on the issue on Saturday. Colleges including Miranda House, Ramjas, Hansraj and Maitreyi among others, are continuing with the exams as per the schedule. Pratibha Jolly, Principal of Miranda House, said that there would be no disruption in exams in their college.
As per sources, Federation of Central Universities Teachers’ Association (FEDCUTA) has called a nationwide strike. It is protest against the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) proposed service conditions of university and college teachers scheduled to be adopted in the council meeting on January 16, 2010. The teachers claimed that if adopted, the Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) for teachers, as planned by the UGC Committee, would force teachers to pay more attention to other activities, rather than concentrating on quality in teaching, which is the primary responsibility of any teacher. Further, the promotion modalities have been devised such that it would deflect teacher’s attention from their main responsibility.
Further, according to the proposed scheme of UGC Committee, it has given weightage to activities such as campus development, institutional governance, consultancy projects, etc, which are not under control of teachers. According to them, these activities solely depend upon administrator’s discretion and would lead to sycophancy in universities as well as in colleges.
