DUTA convention over 'forced standardisation' in education

Opening a front against Union Human Resource Ministry’s “forced standardisation” in higher education, Delhi University Teachers’ Association on Monday organised a convention to question the hurried attempt to implement the Choice Based Credit System and the Common Universities Bill 2013.

DUTA president Nandita Narain called it an attempt to “draw public attention” to these issues so that a larger debate can ensue both “inside and outside Parliament”.
According to the resolution adopted by the convention, through the CBCS, the national accreditation and ranking parameters, the financing plan under the Rashtriya Ucchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) and the authoritarian Common Central Universities Bill, the public policy framework will cause degradation of teaching-learning in public-funded universities.

The convention also resolved that the proposed changes will lead to transfer of commonly owned resources into private hands, reduced funding of public-funded institutions and undermine democratic decision-making through corporate models of governance and commercialisation of knowledge.

Calling it “bulldozing of economic policies”, writer and activist Arundhati Roy said the proposed changes are an attempt at privatising education.

“It is an attempt at corporatising or privatising imagination,” she said.  
“The purpose of university education is to know something about everything and everything about something – meaning, the focus should be on specialisation and general awareness. The choices were available before,” D P Tripathi of Nationalist Congress Party said, commenting on the CBCS.

According to the University Grants Commission, the new system proposes a common syllabus for all central universities, a common entrance test, faculty and student mobility, and credit transfers.

“At least 40-50 MPs from different political parties have extended their support, and have assured that they will raise the matter on the floor of the House,” Tripathi said.
In a statement issued by DUTA, it said: “This Convention notes that the CBCS fraudulently claims to offer students choice and mobility. It negates ‘choice’ by imposing uniform curricula and structure on all universities”

Some participants suggested that the CBCS ignores the existing shortage of infrastructure and teachers in public-funded institutions and promotes online courses as a substitute to classroom learning.

The convention also opposed the Common Central Universities Bill 2013 and the RUSA, saying that it is an attempt to “pave way for the wholesale privatisation of higher education”. Some alleged that it is an attempt to override the autonomy of universities, governed by acts of Parliament.

The convention saw participation from eminent educationists, representatives of political parties, students’ organisations and teachers’ associations.