Student Can Study At Several Colleges For A Single Degree

Delhi University's academic council cleared the path for the introduction of a meta college and meta university at its meeting on Saturday. The council has approved the launching of a four-year degree programme - BTech in Humanities - to be offered as a part of a meta college. The university will also allow credit transfer from other educational institutions in the coming months though the modalities are still to be decided.

These decisions will be put before the executive council on Sunday. 'All the proposals have been approved by the academic council. While there were six dissents, 114 people favoured the new concepts. Most likely, we will start the BTech in Humanities from August 15,' DU vicechancellor Professor Dinesh Singh said. The course will be offered as part of a meta college. According to the concept, the students of this meta college will have an option to study different subjects at different colleges while specialising in a particular field. 'About 50 per cent of the course curriculum will be taught through existing courses at colleges while the rest is going to be taught using projects. Students can opt for specialisation in any six areas including education and counselling, media studies, art and design, and historical tourism,' Singh added. Students already enrolled in a DU college in the first year will be eligible to apply. On a larger scale, DU is coming together with Jamia Millia Islamia to put together a meta university. The two universities will start their own chapter of the human resource development ministry's meta university project, most likely from August. DU and Jamia will together offer a course called Masters in Mathematics Education. Based on their individual expertise and infrastructure, the two varsities will offer different subjects, share faculty and provide students with an option to use resources at both places. Though IIT-Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University were also supposed to be a part of this collaboration, they might now come aboard next year. 'We are now waiting for Jamia to move fast and make it happen. The proposal is cleared at our end,' Singh said. Though Singh insists these changes are imperative and would act as harbinger of innovation in the country, teachers in DU called it brazen and violation of statutes and ordinances. Sheo Dutt, who teaches at Shaheed Bhagat Singh College (evening) and also offered his dissent as a member in the academic council meeting on Saturday, said: 'The VC called an emergent meeting and passed such important agenda items without due deliberation. They are changing the ordinance without first discussing it in the standing committee. Even the new courses were not discussed by the committee of courses.' He said that credit transfers can give rise to privatisation of education as DU may allow transfer of credits from private universities. 'Each institution will be first approved before credit transfers are allowed,' Singh retorted. Another teacher questioned the composition of the new courses. 'Master in Mathematics Education includes papers on English for media communication, advertising, contemporary India and the world we live in, development journalism, media management, public relations and corporate communication, media law and ethics, mass communication theory and media research. How are they even relevant?' she questioned.