DUs drafting of English courses and syllabi for 4 year UG programme shrouded in secrecy

Updated on: Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Delhi University is working overtime to finish designing courses for the four-year-undergraduate programme. However, four days before the April 21 deadline, drafting of English courses, and the syllabi, is marked by 'secret' venue, protesting teachers questioning the arbitrary way of course preparation, protest letter to the vice chancellor and demand for meeting of general body of teachers.

To keep protesting teachers away, the syllabus-drafting committee of the DU English department, which cancelled its March 30 meeting, finally met at a 'secret' venue on April 11. Around 15 teachers met at the university guesthouse.

"A meeting was convened on March 30 by the English department for a select group of 25 teachers to prepare the courses and the syllabi. Later we were told the meeting had been called off, anticipating protests. A subsequent meeting was held at the DU guesthouse in a hush-hush manner so that only the selected teachers could be present," said Vinita Chandra of Ramjas College.

On the same day, the English teachers of Miranda House wrote to vice chancellor Dinesh Singh, objecting to the university's "ad-hoc" measures.

Around six teachers, part of the committee, refused to join the April 11 meeting after they were told earlier that 30 courses and the entire syllabus have to be prepared in 10 days, sources said.

Sanam Khanna, an English teacher with Kamala Nehru College, said, "When we create the syllabi, we also need to have a clarity about incremental skills and knowledge we are trying to develop in a student. But all the university told us is the number of papers a student will take in four years. It has not even clarified whether it is up to the students to choose Discipline 2 or whether colleges will create the combination." "Right now we are all working in isolation. Never in the history of the university have the syllabi been drafted in such a hurry and without any clarity of the structure," she added.

Despite repeated attempts, the head of the DU English department could not be contacted.

All DU colleges offer English and 46 of these offer the honours course. But DU chose to invite just 25 teachers from 13 colleges, including Khalsa (evening), Dyal Singh (evening), Satyawati (evening), Swami Shraddhanand, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Maharaja Agrasen, Shivaji, Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Zakir Husain (evening), Hindu, IP, Rajdhani and Bharti.

The missing colleges include St Stephen's, Miranda House, Sri Venkateswara, Lady Shri Ram Ramjas, Kirori Mal, Gargi, Kamla Nehru, Daulat Ram, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Deshbandhu and Hansraj.

DUs drafting of English courses and syllabi for 4 year UG programme shrouded in secrecy

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