In a candid conversation with Ifrah Mufti, Delhi University’s Vice Chancellor Professor Yogesh Singh talked about DU’s plan to hike fees, prepare for the fourth year of FYUP programme and new campuses. Excerpts:
In the past three years, nearly five lakh applicants could not secure a seat in DU. The education ministry recently told Parliament that universities saw a surge in the number of applications received each year against the number of seats. Is it because of the CUET entrance exam or anything else?
I’ll take this as a positive comment. This will happen because we have a limited number of seats but still a huge number in an Indian University. Being one of the best institutes given an eminence tag by the government of India- University is doing very well. Most of the state’s students want to study here. When our admissions were based on 12th marks, our cut-offs used to be 89% to 98%. Even back then, students were not getting admission. Earlier, the Class 12 marks were dependent on state boards, which were tougher, like in UP, Maharashtra, and those students couldn’t get admission. But now, they get an equal chance to appear and get into the University and their desired college. And the best part is that if you couldn’t perform well this year, you can always try again next year.
DU teachers and students have rejected the ‘undermining of democracy’ as DU proposed to overhaul the DUSU election. It became a war of memes. Is the decision justified?
I strongly believe that the time has come to rethink the election system. There are directions from the high court, and recommendations from the Lyngdoh committee. Election will be very different this time. We may go for direct or indirect elections that we will decide later. There will be restrictions and proper guidelines to follow. Though there were guidelines last year as well, they were not followed. We do not want to repeat what happened last year.
Students and teachers of the varsity believe that there is a north-south divide in the campus as most programmes and events are limited to the North campus while the South campus is given step motherly treatment as the colleges in south campus lack good infrastructure and facilities. Your take?
South campus was made for a different purpose. It is more of a science oriented campus. When it comes to providing libraries, DU is doing everything- ebooks, internet activity etc. Our treatment of the South campus is the same. Meanwhile the north campus witnesses all the ‘Halla gulla’. It is a politically sensitive campus and the Delhi administration sits here so naturally all administrative activities take place here. Now we will soon have two more campuses, one in East and another one in West Delhi.
Is Delhi University planning to hike fee in order to strengthen the Varsity’s finances?
We don’t want to hike the fees very heavily for the students. It will be a regular fee hike, and the fees alone don’t run the Varsity. We have an adequate budget and support from the central government. Under the Higher Education Funding Agency (HEFA), we have received Rs 1000 crore, then under the Institute of Eminence tag, we have received Rs 900 crore. We have purchased furniture worth more than Rs 100 crore recently, and we have also spent over Rs 100 crore on upgrading our library. Money is not an issue for us. We are just trying to work harder to spend the money for the future of our students.
Any new plans on the anvil for the University?
A new college is coming up—Veer Savarkar College, which will offer BSc Computer Management and all 24th-century courses. There will be additional seats. In departments also, new courses have been started. The challenge is to start implementing the New Education Policy 2020. That batch has reached the third year, and the fourth year will begin in July. We will have to see who opts for the fourth year and who decides to opt out. We don’t have experience with it yet, but we are confident that whatever happens this year, we will be in a better position next year. It’s a revolving process. If 50% to 60% of students decide to go ahead, it will impact the PG programmes. The next five to six months will be crucial for us. The curriculum is ready; we have to work on labs, and some colleges have issues, but we will work on those as well.