Issues related to the four-year undergraduate programme, salary and absenteeism figured prominently at a meeting Delhi University Vice-Chancellor had with Delhi University Teachers' Association today.
"The meeting which lasted for an hour was called after a gap of four years... DUTA representatives took up a host of issues that have remained unresolved for the past three years as a result of a lack of dialogue with the University administration," President of DUTA Nandita Narain said.
The association urged the VC to withdraw the show-cause notice served to the School of Open Learning (SOL) Staff Association President N K Aggarwal after last week's protest which was organised to demand continuation of regular degree programmes at the SOL, she said.
"However, it was unfortunate that the Vice-Chancellor did not respond to any of the issues raised in the meeting as he had to rush to another meeting. The VC on his part, raised the issue of teachers' absenteeism requesting the DUTA's cooperation in this regard," Narain added.
DUTA office bearers said that it did not encourage absenteeism of any kind and pointed out the existing statutory mechanisms that have been put in place, including Student- Faculty Committees to ensure smooth functioning of the teaching-learning processes.
DUTA also expressed hope that the University administration would continue the process of meetings, without which no meaningful resolution of the issues may be hoped for.
The other issues taken up during the meeting were the cases of victimisation of teachers in several colleges including suspensions, salary cuts, denial of promotion and permanent appointments and difficulties faced by the ad-hoc teachers due to three-years long stalling of appointments and the arbitrary and unacademic screening criteria.
A number of other issues including "curtailment of democratic expression of dissent" and the imposition of Code of Conduct on teachers were also taken up by the teachers' association.
