Delhi School Of Journalism: A Crooked White Elephant

Delhi School of Journalism which is said to be launched in response to Columbia School of Journalism is on the boil for a long time now. Today Students of the department took out a peaceful rally to the Arts Faculty which was joined by the members of teaching staff and students from other departments.  Last week students from the department also sat on a hunger strike but to no avail, they may soon find any resolution. 

The students of Delhi School of Journalism have been protesting against the college administration on the counts of the following:

Poor infrastructure- Neither classrooms have any ceiling fans nor do they have any ventilation or windows, making students fall sick and claustrophobic. In past, students have complained of sweating and fainted due to extreme heat and sultry weather. 

Inadequate facilities – with no functional library, no computer lab, no camera units, and editing consoles, the students are unable to learn any technical skills in the absence of all such equipment.  

2 Faculty members over 120 students – Though UGC mentions of 1:10 faculty: student ratio but this centre barely has 2 odd faculty members for 120 students.  

Exorbitant fees- Most of the students come from poor socio-economic background and they are paying Rs 70000 a year for this course, which makes it one of the most expensive course in Delhi University. 

Guest Faculty’s salaries are not paid – Guest Faculty members teaching in the department have also not been paid for the last 3 months. Initially they were promised to be given Rs 1500 (1000 per hour for the class and 500 for conveyance) but later OSD, Manisvini Yogi retracted that only a total of Rs 1000 will be paid to the Guest faculty members. 

Nepotism in the selection of faculty members- Dr Rudresh Narayan, 1 of the faculty members, who is teaching at the centre, does not have a NET qualification, which is a pre-requisite to get a teaching position at any level in the university. OSD Yogi of the school defends it by uses an excerpt from a draft regulation of UGC 2018 which says “University Grants Commission (UGC) has now come up with a new regulation, which exempts candidates who have been awarded PhD from having NET qualification for direct recruitment to Assistant Professor post. This new draft regulation is known as Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and Other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education 2018”. However, the rule actually says “Those who have registered for PhD prior to 11 July 2009, shall be governed by the previous norms. Such candidates will also be exempted from NET requirement post fulfilling five criteria set by UGC: degree must have been awarded in regular mode, thesis evaluation by at least two examiners, participated in open PhD viva voce, published two research papers from the PhD work out of which at least one must be in a refereed journal, must have at least two presentations based on PhD work”.

No hostels/ Libraries for students- Even girl students are denied to be given hostels by the university because the university does not treat them at par with other students.  When students go to the central library of the university, they are denied to enter because of the very same reason. 

Students not given any DTC passes– Students have to spend their own money to travel from public transport because they are not being given DTC passes because of their unrecognized status as students of this university. 

Communally Insensitive Statements - A few students from the minority group complains that they are not allowed to go for Friday prayers by the OSD of the school and she passes communally insensitive remarks.   

Institute of Eminence Status to DSJ?- Delhi University proposes to make DSJ as an Institute of Eminence but the entire administration fails to cater to the basic infrastructure like Tables, Chairs, Water coolers and a Cafeteria. 

The students expressed their discontent in an open letter to the Vice Chancellor Yogesh Tyagi and Chancellor, VP Venkaiah Naidu. Meanwhile, there was another controversy the institute had to face due to leakage of the alleged budget document, which showed that close to Rs 46 lakh remained unspent last year. Students feel that there has been a bungling of funds and have raised a demand for the audit of the previous financial year to be made public.

DSJ was the dream project of its Vice-Chancellor, Yogesh Tyagi. As of today, more than a year has passed since the school kicked off, but yet, students cry that the VC is asleep; he must wake up and make things right, lest the situation escalates and spirals out control to go on and become a nightmare. 

Rather providing assistance to the innocent students, 8 students were suspended from the college last month.