Delhi University’s (DU) Economic faculty members from several colleges have opposed a recent suggestion presented during the Academic Council (AC) meeting to drop three elective papers from the undergraduate (UG) programme.
The three papers in discussion are Economy, State and Society, Production Relations and Globalisation and Economics of Discrimination, ANI reported.
The faculty members wrote a letter to Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh, requesting to retain these papers.
ANI quoted Delhi University VC Yogesh Singh saying, “But some of the members have very different views about the whole concept. They say, many parts of the curriculum are common, some are redundant, while some are not required. But these were the views of some of the honourable members."
The VC added that he has recommended constituting an expert committee to look into this matter.
The VC further said, "After 75 years of independence, we should energise new thought processes in the economy as for becoming a developed nation by 2047, we need economic growth of 8-9 per cent for the next 20-25 years".
The report from the expert committee will be placed in the meeting of the Standing Committee on academic affairs of the academic council on June 14 and after the recommendation on the matter, it will be placed in front of the Academic Council of the university, he further said.
What do faculty members say?
Nandini Dutta, Associate Professor at Miranda House and member of the Department of Economics syllabus sub-committee, said, "There are these three papers that need a review because they feel that these are repetitive papers and the content is almost similar which we (those who have created these papers) know for sure that they are not the same papers and they are the papers of huge relevance."
Dutta also added that all these papers have gone through with due diligence that was needed and it has been argued and discussed within the department's syllabus revision committee.
Saumyajit Bhattacharya, an Associate Professor at Kirori Mal College, also added that the papers are an essential part of the Economics curriculum and are not overlapping with any of the papers in the syllabus.
