The All India Students’ Association (AISA) on Monday protested outside the DU Vice-Chancellor’s office against the arbitrary cut in number of seats for the sought-after M.A. English course.
Reduced by 30%
The protest comes after the university’s English department reduced the number of seats for the programme by 30%. According to the students, “As against 425 students last year, only 299 students made it to the course this year. It came as a shock to us that the seat cut took place without any deliberation or information provided to teachers or applicants.”
Dept justifies
They added that the HoD of the department revealed the seat cut only after the results were announced, saying that the decision was taken to avoid being penalised by the UGC.
‘Revert the move’
AISA said that the seat cut came at a time when the number needs to be increased instead. “We are seeing seat cuts at various institutions. First, it was JNU where we saw a seat cut of over 80% in research programmes. Now, DU seems to be following with a cut of 30% in the seats for M.A. English. We demand that the university revert the anti-student move,” the protesters demanded.
The students said that it was saddening that the HoD of the department had justified the seat cut citing quality control and doing away with ‘overcrowded rooms’. “If the classes are overcrowded, then one should ask for more infrastructure. It was in March that we saw unused funds worth hundreds of crores being returned to the UGC,” said the students.
