Students, Parents and Every Citizen Have a Right to an Informed and Transparent Assessment of the Additional Financial Burden

and the Promises of Quality, Flexibility and Greater Employability of the new Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) in DU

Join a Public Hearing

with teachers, educationists, students & parents 30 May, Arts Faculty Gate, DU North Campus, 11 am
FYUP in DU marks a fundamental structural change - a tectonic shift in the framework of higher education- which will have severe reverberations for the future of students across the country. And yet, it is being invoked without allowing for any structured formal debate in any national forum or UGC and not even within Delhi University itself. Concerns and issues raised by the finest academic minds of the university and the country have been shoddily set aside. The two central claims of the VC about FYUP are of greater 'employability' and 'flexibility'. However, even a cursory look at the proposed structure and course content would raise several chilling questions about the future awaiting the student community. Unlike the present structure of a Honours and a General Programme, under FYUP: Every student will have to COMPULSORILY enter a Four Year Honours programme but s/he will have the FLEXIBILITY or OPTION to leave at the end of two years with a Diploma, at the end of three with a Bachelor degree (without honours), and at the end of four years with a Bachelor (Hons) degree! In this scheme: Two-year Diploma will involve : Only 8 Core Courses, 20 Non-Core Courses! So, the DU Diploma would be a Diploma in... WHICH subject? What is the value of such a non-specialised 'Diploma' in the job market compared to more focussed Diploma from other vocational institutes? Would such a DU Diploma not be seen by employers as a 'drop-out degree'? Three Year Bachelor Degree will have Only 14 Main Core Courses and 28 NonCore Courses, whereas students of other Universities will get a BA (Hons) Degree in three years, with intensive training in their core discipline! 4 year Bachelor (Hons) degree will have Only 20 Core Courses out of a total of 50 Courses; whereas the earlier 3 Year Hons Degree Had 75% Core Courses! Therefore, 4 year Hons Degree will mean MORE Time, MORE Money, LESS Knowledge in the Honours subject. Why will such a delayed and diluted Hons. degree make students more employable? All in all, whether it is Diploma (in what one doesn't know) or a Bachelor (without Hons) or an Hons Bachelor degree, at every stage, majority (60-70%) of the courses will be a wild assortment of unrelated, non-core, often school-level subjects while only 30-40% of the courses will be the Core subject for which students took admission

under FYUP! With such a huge gap between the intent (nomenclature) and content, what will be the real worth of the degree itself? Can such systematic erosion of focussed training and knowledge enhance employability? Doesn't such heavy and disproportionate bundle of COMPULSORY non-core courses make the FYUP more rigid rather than flexible as claimed by the VC? Further, in the absence of any UGC guideline, how will the FYUP students prove the worth and 'equivalence' of their multiple-level diploma/degree while seeking admission in other universities operating with 10+2+3 scheme? Who will compensate them for this impending crisis? In a situation where a common student has to spend annually Rs. 1-1.5 lakh annually to fend for college fees and other living costs of rent, food and transport, 4 year will place an increased financial burden for the additional year. Isn't it obvious then, that FYUP will further discourage students who are already economically and socially disadvantaged (particularly the SC/ST/ OBC/PH/Minorities/Women students) to carry on with the Honours programme and force them to settle for the drop -out degrees. Recently, DU has been conducting Open House sessions for new entrants: but student and parents have all seen the administratio ns total refusal to answer any questions on the FYUP. The administration has gone so far as to say there are other universities in the city please join them. At a moment when students have so many doubts and queries the DU administration is not answering them, because it has no answers. Deeply alarmed at the content and structure of the FYUP and the manner it is being implemented, five eminent scholars - scientist Yash Pal, historian Romila Thapar, author U R Ananthamurthy, poet and former chairman of Lalit Kala Akademi Ashok Vajpeyi and critic Namvar Singh have made a powerful appeal : .. Autonomy does not give licence to any institution, let alone a university, to treat the education of young people in a cavalier fashion... The four-year course that DU is determined to implement goes beyond the National Policy on Education (1986) as it violates the 10+2+3 structure mandated by the policy. DU cannot be allowed to proceed with its new course without revision of the national policy and adequate discussion that such a revision would require. We urge the Government of India and the President of India, who is also the Visitor of Delhi University, to intervene without further delay and save the lives of lakhs of young men and women from being manipulated through an ill-conceived educational experiment. (TOI, May 25) It is in this backdrop, we appeal to you to join a Public hearing with Teachers and Educationists, Students and Parents is being organised on 30 May at the Arts' faculty Gate of DU North campus from 11 am. We must all recognise that education is not commodity like a TV or a refrigerator. A bad consumer good may cause some monetary loss but still it can be replaced. We cannot replace a bad education acquired by spending years and money - it becomes an irreplaceable burden which cannot be compensated for! Sunny Kumar, All India Students' Association (AISA) 9213974505 Uma Gupta, Left and Democratic Teachers' Forum (LDTF) 986803422