Student groups divided over CBCS

Delhi University’s student groups are a divided house even as the Delhi University’s executive council on Thursday gave a decree in favour of rolling out of the University Grants Commission’s Choice Based Credit System from this year’s academic session.

Last year, the student organisations in DU were in unison over the controversial four-year undergraduate programme, which was canned following widespread agitation by them.

However, this time influential groups like the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad claim that they see merits in the new system.

“Besides learning the traditional subjects, the students will learn additional subjects under the new system,” the National General Secretary of ABVP Shreehari Borikar said, while welcoming the DU’s verdict on the CBCS.

As per the UGC, the CBCS proposes a common syllabus for all central universities, a common entrance test, faculty and student mobility, and credit transfers.

“Now that the CBCS has been passed, the university should raise the infrastructure for the proper implementation of CBCS,” Borikar said.

“Post graduate courses already have necessary infrastructure but it is lacking in undergraduate courses. University administration must raise the infrastructure to meet the requirement for implementation of CBCS,” he added.

Lack of infrastructure
The RSS-affiliate ABVP had earlier expressed its apprehensions over the implementation of the scheme in DU, claiming that the university lacks infrastructure to rollout the new system.

Congress-affiliate National Students Union of India, which joined the agitation against the FYUP only after the BJP-led government came to power, is planning to hold a consultation meet with stakeholders of the new system.

“We will discuss whether the CBCS is beneficial for student or not and will ensure that student should not suffer in the process,” NSUI national spokesperson, Amrish Ranjan Pandey, said. 

Meanwhile, the leftwing student group, All India Students' Association, is claiming that the university under pressure from the Human Resource Development ministry implemented the course without consulting the student groups.

“The manner in which CBCS is being bulldozed in DU and thousands of students are being treated as guinea pigs,” said AISA presidents Sucheta De.

“This shows how democratic norms are being murdered under the guise of diktats by the HRD ministry, which clearly wants to experiment with students,” she added.