A day after a petition sent by 200 Delhi University students to the President complaining about the dismal teaching standards of newly-appointed teachers in the English department was made public, the department maintained a stoic silence over the issue.
The development coincided with Delhi University being ranked number two in India in Arts and Humanities in the QS World University rankings.
The students, in their letters marked to the Vice-Chancellor, the Registrar and the department head, had made some shocking allegations about three newly-appointed teachers.
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One teacher is claimed to have made some unsavoury comments regarding Muslims. “She claimed that Muslims brought homosexuality to India and taught Indians how to cheat and gamble. She failed to substantiate her claim,” the students complained.
Another teacher is alleged to have “specifically asked girls to stand up and ask questions so that they can lose two calories in this manner”. This teacher is also alleged to have explained racism by “making a comparatively darker complexioned boy to stand up”. She is also accused of being “unable to teach serious issues like caste and race in a sensitive and sensible manner, her comments, intentional or not, verge on the offensive”.
In addition to all these allegations, the students have said that the teachers have low attendance and hurry through their lectures.
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The department head, Sumanyu Satpathy, refused to come on the phone or meet anyone in his office at the Arts Faculty.
It is not easy to gett into the M.A. English programme of Delhi University. A minimum score of 65 to 70 per cent is needed for direct admissions, failing which entry is through an entrance exam. Very few make the cut. Classes are held by the department in the North and South campuses while tutorials are given by teachers who meet them once a week.
“Our undergraduate programme is also very rigorous. Students are encouraged to ask questions in keeping with the liberal arts category of the course. They are used to discussing topics like gender, sexuality, caste issues as well as a range of topics. An M.A. student expects a certain standard in DU, and when this is not met consistently, they obviously feel cheated,” said a teacher who did not wish to be named.
In fact, many teachers in the university refused to say anything on the subject, since the three teachers are newly-recruited permanent faculty and saying anything could be misconstrued. “When interviews were being held, teachers with Ph.Ds from top global universities had also applied. But the university administration intentionally chose teachers who were subversive. There is a reputation that the English department enjoys of being liberal and this is a concentrated effort to end it,” said one teacher deeply involved with the issue.
Interestingly, the English department had not cooperated with the implementation of the now-scrapped four-year undergraduate programme when it was in the pipeline last year. It had refused to make the syllabus for the same.