Classrooms so crowded that students have to stand, or wait outside in the corridors and listen to the lecture; teachers so confused that they don’t know which language to teach in. Two weeks after Delhi University opened its doors to the new four-year undergraduate course, complaints like these have found their outlet in some social networking sites, even as teachers and students who were opposing the new course have reiterated that this was what they had feared all along.
“Boycott Class! Occupy Vice-Chancellor's Residence,” a Facebook invite to a protest programme against the “fall out” of the new four-year undergraduate programme that is being planned by the All-India Students’ Association, had students venting their rage.
A student, Dimple, has posted: “In my college the number of students is more than the seats available. Some students stand in the class and a large number of students are absent... If all students attend class what is going to happen...?”
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Another student HarshVardhan has posted: “In a classroom of 60 there are more than 90 students. Some of them are standing at the back and that too with little space. There is a single fan overhead in which they attend Mathematics class.”
The AISA has been visiting all the lesser-known colleges in the university to find out the real scene. “At Satyawati College we went to a class where more than 120 students were waiting for their Foundation Course class to begin. They told us that they have been waiting everyday but the teacher does not show up. Hindi Honours students have also been very anxious that many of their papers from the Foundation Course were to be conducted in English,” said AISA member Sunny.
“In our college they have clubbed students from different streams together, in one class there are students from Punjabi (Honours), Sanskrit (Honours) and Zoology (Honours) and the teachers are confused about which language to teach in,” said Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College teacher Saikat Ghosh, who also rubbished the claims made by the college principal Jaswinder Singh that there were just 20 over-admissions. “Sometimes the corridors are spilling over with students because there is no place to sit,” he said.
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However, on visiting the college, the students said they always found place to sit but for a different reason.