Much is missing from the curriculum that was approved for UG Economics course

Updated on: Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Some of Delhi University's most celebrated economists and economic historians like Amartya Sen, Shahid Amin and K N Raj will be disappointed to learn that the papers they once taught will no longer be a part of the undergraduate economics course. Despite the extra year, much is missing from the curriculum that was "approved" amid protests on Saturday. Along with economic history, optional courses are also gone. The four-year programme promises an "interdisciplinary perspective" in the new courses but teachers say that, in case of economics, courses that were interdisciplinary in nature have been omitted.

The syllabus was kept "confidential" till it was tabled before the faculty of social science meeting. The content shocked the teachers and 50 teachers wrote to the head of the economics department. In a letter, 46 economics teachers said, "in spite of our deep disagreement with this hurried exercise of the four-year-programme introduction...college departments put their minds in arriving at a course structure and at no stage refused to co-operate with the department. We therefore don't understand why college teachers at large have been treated in such an insulting manner and what has been the need for such utmost secrecy."

Historians Nayanjot Lahiri and Amar Farooqui and sociology professor Rajni Palriwala also separately wrote to the economics head.

Lahiri, who was the former dean of colleges, said, "Since the new undergraduate programme is supposed to be interdisciplinary, I find that this is precisely what has been sacrificed by the neglect of historical issues and perspectives. This is ironic because many history students of an earlier generation, including my colleague professor Shahid Amin, learned their economic history at Delhi School of Economics. This is also ironic because the profile of DSE has been enhanced in the public domain by its contribution in this field."

Farooqui said, "I am saddened by the fact that the economics course has no place for the comparative history of industrialization and modernization, specially in a period when in an increasingly globalized world variations and disparities have emerged as a major challenge to the disciplines, be it economics, politics or history."

According to Nandini Dutta of Miranda House, "the confusions are primarily because of the hasty planning and for not heeding to the opinion of economics teachers".

Much is missing from the curriculum that was approved for UG Economics course

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