Various matters dealing with funding to colleges, online examinations, admissions and ad hoc teachers among others were raised at an Executive Council meeting of Delhi University held on Monday.
EC members said that they strongly opposed the withholding of funds by the Delhi government, pointing out that the irregular release of funds to these colleges for the last one year had halted developmental work.
According to EC member Rajesh Jha, the university administration reported that it had sought time with the L-G, CM and the Deputy CM but it had not gotten an appointment with any of them. In response to this, the Delhi government said that the V-C had not sought any meeting with the CM or Dy. CM and added that despite repeated letters to him to discuss the issue, the V-C did not meet Mr. Sisodia or respond to the letters. It added that if the V-C is willing, he is welcome to meet and discuss the issue in the next two to three days.
Open book exam
On open book examinations carried out for final-semester students, EC members termed them exclusionary and said that among regular students, about 4% did not appear during the first phase of the exams, same was the case with 13% of students from the School of Open Learning and 23.5-24% of PwD students. They warned of increase in dropout rates. due to socio-economic challenges. They also disapproved the methods used by the university to bypass statutory bodies such as the EC and the Academic Council to implement the online open book exams.
Pointing out that evaluators could view student’s names while checking question papers, which ran the risk of allowing unethical practices, the members said it went against the principles of fairness and justice.
They also raised other issues with regard to action taken against an ad hoc teacher in Daulat Ram College belonging to the SC category, who had allegedly been removed after a day of rejoining. They demanded urgent action in the matter so that justice is ensured.