5,000 join DUTA march against UGC notification

New Delhi: Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College physics teacher Ashok, his 15-month-old son Ayaan, and his mother Pushpa (53), joined thousands of teachers and their family members protesting against the new UGC gazette notification. Around 5,000 people participated in the protest—the largest Delhi University Teachers Association-led mobilisation in a long time. A sizeable section of the crowd comprised ad hoc teachers, who aren’t eligible to be DUTA members and rarely step out to protest.
“The HRD ministry is attacking every aspect of higher education. First it was students, now teachers. This ministry is not able to understand how higher education works, what is required for quality,” said Rishi, Ashok’s brother-in-law and a chartered accountant. This was the first time he had participated in a protest march. Rajesh Kumar, ad hoc teacher at Satyawati College added that the amendments to the UGC regulations will “affect both quality of public higher education and its accessibility. It will also drastically increase pupil-teacher ratio.”
Teachers have argued that the new notification will increase the workload for every teacher by about 50% and lead to a proportionate amount of job cuts.
“We have 12 posts in our department. With the new specifications, that’ll reduce to seven or eight. Ad hocs will be the first to go. All those on probation may also lose their jobs,” said Saumyajit Bhattacharya, economics teacher at Kirori Mal College. Teachers also claimed there will be no jobs in DU for the next 10 years. Ad hoc teachers from the mathematics department of Maitreyi College participated for the first time in a DUTA-organised march. “This time, we had to fight. With these regulations, we’ll be jobless. We have no options,” said a teacher from the group. One had taught for five years; another for seven.
It’s not just a livelihood issue either. The increase in workload will mean higher pupil-teacher ratio in colleges and each teacher will have to teach more papers. “With the increase in class sizes, the internal assessment load is already high. The tutorial system will suffer and that’s where students develop writing skills. Where we are heading, we’ll all have to do MCQs (multiple choice questions) only,” said Bhattacharya.
The marchers, joined by some students, including Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Rama Naga and Mohit Pandey and members of Krantikari Yuva Sangathan, were stopped at Parliament Street. Staff associations of nearly every college joined. There were representatives of dozens of staff associations, including those of PGDAV, Maharaja Agrasen, Indraprastha College, Motilal, Motilal (evening), Shivaji, SGTB Khalsa, Deshbandhu, Ram Lal Anand, Mata Sundri, Bharti, Shyamlal, Daulat Ram, Institute of Home Economics, Swami Shraddhanand, Ramjas, Jesus and Mary, Hindu and Shri Ram College of Commerce.
These are colleges where staff associations have resolved against the UGC notification. There were dozens of children. Former DUTA joint-secretary Anita Ghosh had with her children from Jan Gyanodaya, an organisation she runs and even funds with others, several of them ad hocs and researchers.