DUTA opposes proposal of autonomous colleges

New Delhi: Delhi University teachers staged a flash protest, continuing their struggle against the proposal of autonomous colleges. The agitating teachers marched to SCOPE building, where UGC was holding an orientation programme for all college principals to discuss and push forward the proposal of granting autonomous status to colleges.

"The Autonomous College scheme is being pushed by the government directly through the UGC and the university administration. The proposal to grant autonomous status to colleges identified on the basis of ranking is to incentivise commercialization in the form of self-financing," said a teacher.

"The teaching community expressed total shock and dismay at the Government's attempt to bulldoze the scheme of Autonomous colleges over individual colleges in a top-down manner. By touting autonomy as a way to improve quality and further academic excellence, the Government wants to abdicate its responsibility by refusing to allocate adequate funds to meet thesevere infrastructure deficit and needed increase in the number of teachers," said in statement.

The DUTA strongly believes that the move to forcibly convert well-established Delhi University Colleges into Autonomous Colleges is a part of the agenda to further commercialisation.

"The brand names of colleges will be used to convert them into teaching shops. "Financial Autonomy" means less government funding and greater reliance on earning through market-friendly courses. The cost of education will steeply increase; every aspect from tuition fees to

hostel facilities and examinations will become means of generating money," said a teacher.