DU Academic Council meeting: Sexual harassment complaint against Ramjas College professor discussed

Sexual harassment complaint against a professor in Ramjas College, the scrapping of Value Added Courses, the deteriorating situation of 12 Delhi University (DU) colleges that are 100% funded by the Delhi Government, and disruption in the academic calendar of law faculty were some of the issues raised in the Academic council meeting held on Friday, December 27, as per a report by The New Indian Express.

Monami Sinha, elected member of the Academic Council said, "The sexual harassment allegations against a professor in Ramjas college, made by a female student, needs to be urgently looked into. The protocol and ICC guidelines need to be followed. Moreover, the alleged perpetrator is the dean of student welfare at Ramjas College. He must be immediately removed from the positions he holds while the inquiry is on."

She also added, "VAC courses need to be scrapped and the National Education Policy (NEP) revisited. Value-added courses, in general, fail to provide meaningful benefits. While some courses on the list may appear impressive, most colleges lack the resources and expertise to deliver them effectively. Even when advanced courses are offered, students often opt for simpler alternatives, like participating in physical activities under courses like Fit India rather than taking on yet another demanding course, especially when they are already managing six or more courses. This approach not only wastes the time of both students and faculty but also leads to misplaced teaching assignments, with Commerce teachers conducting Yoga classes and Economics teachers teaching Emotional Happiness. Also these courses have eaten into the hours of teaching dedicated to core courses thereby diluting the core course content."

Commenting on the issue, Mithuraaj Dhusiya, Elected Member AC, stated, "Delhi government has not been releasing timely grants, which is traumatising staff with no salaries for months. There should be total counting of past service of all teachers who became permanent after working for many years as ad hoc and temporary."

"The University should strictly ensure that there should be no cases of Not Found Suitable (NFS) in cases of permanent appointments. There should be total commitment to social justice and not mere lip service. We also condemn the disruption of the academic calendar of Law Faculty through last-minute, hurriedly arranged remedial classes, further burdening the already-burdened teachers. All pending cases of promotions should be resolved at the earliest."

The note

A dissent note was passed on the twinning programme with foreign universities. It was stated that the student-teacher ratio in the Law faculty skewed with over 10,000 students enrolled in LLB and with roughly 100 teachers. Each student writes five papers each semester and along with repeaters, the number of students taking the examination exceeds 10,000.

The dissent note further read, "By allowing students to go for twinning programmes for a semester in any of semester III/V/VII and without requiring students to complete equivalent corresponding courses or appear for these papers in due course, the university is treating its own core papers as optional. The university seems to be arguing that there is more value in studying abroad for a semester than to have continuity of coursework."