Delhi University on Wednesday informed the Delhi High Court that it had set up a 14-member empowered committee to suggest measures required for modifying the four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) and improving availability of reading material for students with disability.
Informing the Court about this, the university said the committee would also examine the measures currently in place in the internal assessment scheme or examination pattern and suggest further changes that could be made in them for these students.
It further stated that the committee would examine the syllabus of the upcoming semester of the FYUP on priority basis and submit an interim report on these aspects by June 15.
However, a Division Bench of Justice Darmar Murugesan and Justice Jayant Nath directed that the committee submit the interim report by June 7 and thereafter the Academic Council take a decision on its recommendations.
The university made the submissions in response to a public interest litigation by a non-government organisation submitting that the existing design of the FYUP was discriminatory as it did not take into account the aspirations and specific needs of visually-impaired students and other print-disabilities.
The petitioner, Sambhavana, stated that if the course in its present form was implemented, visually-impaired students would suffer irreparable loss as a large number of them would not be able to avail of the proposed benefits of it.
Under the inter-disciplinary programme, students were required to study foundation courses from multiple streams. Two of the 11 foundation courses to be studied over first two semesters would be on mathematics and science. In most cases, visually-impaired students were discouraged or practically barred from taking the two subjects after Class XIII, the petition said.
It further said that like most schools in Delhi, the university had not made adequate arrangements for teaching the two subjects to these students. Yet, the new programme had made it compulsory for all the students to study courses that required prior knowledge of science and mathematics, the petition stated.
