The All India Students’ Association (AISA), along with other progressive student organisations, staged a protest at Gate No 3 of Delhi University’s (DU) Arts Faculty building against the varsity’s mandatory attendance policies today, May 20.
According to a press note from AISA, the demonstrators demanded the DU administration to provide admit cards to all the 1,400 debarred students from Shahid Bhagat Singh College this semester so that they could appear for their examinations, which commences tomorrow, Tuesday, May 21.
Further, AISA also protested against the new Parent-Teacher Meeting (PTM) policy for attendance defaulters implemented in DU-affiliated colleges like Hansraj College, Jesus and Mary College, Aryabhatta College, and so on.
The protesting students from AISA made several points against these policies and claimed that the PTA policy, in particular, is harmful to female students and that it sought to “enforce school-like discipline with the help of family”,
Further, Shantanu, President of AISA’s DU Unit, stated that it was, “totally absurd to seek accountability from students' parents”’ and that DU’s administration must instead show some accountability itself for demanding mandatory attendance from students in “bogus” Skill Enhancement Courses (EAC) and Value Addition Courses (VAC).
As per the press note, when a delegation of four students met the Dean of Student Welfare with their demands, they were told that the administration of the varsity would take this up with the principals of concerned colleges to “discuss the matter and help the students in possible ways”.
AISA decried this response as a “mockery”, and claimed that it it didn’t do anything to solve the problems of “anxious students who will not be able to give exams from tomorrow (May 21) and will have to repeat a year”.
Further, the association declared that it would continue its struggle against mandatory attendance policy and PTMs, and demanded that the administration scrap them.
