Despite protests from students and faculty, the Delhi University Academic Council approved the Four-Year Undergraduate Programmes (FYUP) based on the newly introduced Under Graduate Curriculum Framework (UGCF), on Wednesday, August 3.
The matter will now be sent to the Executive Council, which is the varsity's top decision-making body, for approval. The resolution was dissented by seven members of the Academic Council. The Executive Council approved the UGCF 2022 in February. The new curriculum will be implemented from the academic year 2022-23.
"FYUP syllabi of all courses on agenda have been passed by the Academic Council. Seven members of the council issued dissent note," a council member told PTI.
The syllabi of over 100 undergraduate courses, passed by a standing committee, were tabled for approval during the meeting. Some of the courses are BA (Hons) in Business Economics, BA (Hons) Multi-Media and Mass Communication, BSc in Electronic Science and BSc (Hons) in Microbiology.
The syllabi have been prepared by the course committees and passed by a standing committee. A course committee comprises five professors, two from the department concerned and three college professors. However, the dissenting Academic Council members claimed that over 70,000 students would suffer the "un-academic hurried exercise" through which the DU was trying to claim implementation of the FYUP.
Some of the dissenting members are Mithuraaj Dhusiya, Rajesh Kumar, Dr Megh Raj and Naveen Gaur. "To adopt courses and admit students on the basis of syllabi of first semester papers is extremely unacademic. It is only when all the framework, coursework, syllabi and scheme of evaluation is known that the value of the degree can be understood," the members noted.
They also highlighted alleged irregularities in departments that have worked only with a select few teachers in creating these courses and syllabi. The dissenting members said that this violated democratic norms of holding meetings of all teachers (general bodies) and working through sub-committees for broad areas. The members also alleged that the feedback of undergraduate teachers was also ignored in many departments." The common feeling of all teachers (even those who have participated) is that the decrease in credits for papers is resulting in a huge dilution of core discipline," they said.
This is the second time that DU has tried to implement the FYUP. It had been implemented in 2013, but was scrapped by the Centre. However, DU says that the programme this time is different from the last one.
