DUTA demands withdrawal of CBCS

Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) today once again demanded withdrawal of the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) contending that the programme has led to academic degradation and "stultification of creativity" wherever it has been implemented.
Trashing the HRD Ministry's assertion that CBCS would bring more freedom to students in choices of subjects and streams, the teachers' body said, "the programme negates 'choice' by imposing uniform curricula and structure on all universities.
"It ignores the extreme shortage of infrastructure and teachers in public-funded institutions and forces mobility upon students only to promote their movement to private institutions.
"It ignores the relational and reciprocal nature of teaching-learning by promoting online courses as a substitute to classroom learning," a resolution passed by academicians at a convention on "Questioning the Policy Direction in Higher Education" said.

The convention was attended by prominent people including Arundhati Roy, NCP leader Devi Prasad Tripathi and Congress leader Kiran Walia, besides representatives from the teachers body of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia university.
The convention also opposed the Common Central Universities Bill 2013 and the RUSA on the grounds that they "override the autonomy of different universities, undermine the democratic participation of students and teachers in academic and intellectual life, impose a factory-model of education and discipline on students and teachers, and pave way for wholesale privatisation of higher education".

"We appeal the Union Government to abandon this questionable policy framework and instead, focus on ways to increase public-spending in higher education, strengthen the physical and material infrastructure of public-funded universities/institutions, improve the teacher-student ratio by appointing more teachers and making regular permanent appointments," the resolution said.

"An alternative model for reforms in higher education should emerge from widespread dialogue with eachers, students, their representative organisations and all concerned sections of society," it added.
The Convention called upon HRD ministry and the UGC to withdraw the notifications for implementation of the CBCS from July 2015 and make it a part of the wider consultations on the National Education Policy.
"We urge the Union Government to withdraw the pending Common Central Universities Bill (2013) from Parliament and reconsider the need to bring all central universities under a common, overarching legislation," it said.