While the Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA), last week decided to exempt nearly 50,000 students of final-year batch from its evaluation boycott, the teachers have vowed to continue the protests if their demands are not met by the government. 

Amidst all the protests, the under graduate students are worried about the delay in their results while many fear that the next semester might get delayed due to the ongoing stand-off. 

“The colleges will open in July and the admission process will start only after results. But as of now our papers are still unchecked. If the problem persists, there’s certainly going to be an impact in the coming semester,” Saurav, a second year student of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, told ScoopWhoop.

The teachers on their part also realise the impact of evaluation boycott on the students. 

“We know it’s ultimately the student who has to pay the price for it. But we have no other way,” an Economics professor from St Stephen’s College told ScoopWhoop on condition of anonymity. 

“We have been exploited by this discriminatory system since last 8 years. When teachers are not satisfied, how can the students be,” the professor added. 

Nearly 8000 DU teachers including 5,000 ad hoc professors are on strike since last month, during which they have held dozens of protests against the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) notification that increased the teaching hours of assistant and associate professors by two hours and narrowed the definition of “direct teaching hours.” 

Following the protests, the government did revoke the order of increase in working hours but the teachers body has united to press for other demands.

“The government should roll back its Performance based appraisal system for calculating Academic Performance Indicators (PBAS) API and 5000 ad hoc teachers of DU should be made permanent,” DUTA President, Nandita Narain told ScoopWhoop.

Another demand that has left the DU teachers fuming is the retrospective implementation of the 2013 API system from 2008.

Unlike the existing time-bound promotion system in various government departments, the PBAS API system categorizes promotion on the basis of various academic criteria like teaching hours, research, seminars, student feedback and published works. However, the teachers allege that the standards set for promotion are nearly “impossible to achieve.”

Under the API system, Professor Narian said, a teacher is required to teach 300 hours per semester. 

“Even if a teacher teaches throughout the 15-week semester without any leave or other research work, he/she still won’t be able to make it. It violates the government’s own order according to which an assistant professor has to teach 16 hours per week, while as associate professors and professors have to dedicate 14 hours of their time in a week to teaching, tutorials, practicals and project supervision,” Narain, a mathematics professor of St. Stephen’s College, explained. 

Dr. Ambika, an ad hoc Physics professor from Acharya Narendra Dev College told ScoopWhoop “even the teachers who have been teaching since last 11 years haven’t been permanently appointed.”

Dr. Ambika also said many of her colleagues quit DU and joined private colleges for better job security.

Feature image source:  PTI