DU AC meeting: VC calls for permanent hiring, clears PG medical courses; members raise dissent notes

New Delhi, Dec 5 (PTI) The Academic Council meeting of the University of Delhi on Friday saw Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh call for a shift away from temporary appointments, stating that DU "must change its culture" by ensuring permanent faculty recruitment on a regular basis.

He said academic appointments should be conducted twice a year and urged colleges to reduce reliance on guest faculty, according to an official statement by the university.

Academic Council (AC) member Maya John, however, brought up in her dissent note and criticised the university's decision to challenge the Delhi High Court order on regularising ad-hoc teachers in the Germanic and Romance Studies Department, and called for the withdrawal of the special leave petition.

Opening the Zero Hour discussions, the vice-chancellor also asked colleges to appoint sports coaches and advised institutions facing infrastructure gaps to seek assistance from the Higher Education Financing Agency, noting that the scheme may not remain available indefinitely.

The AC meeting approved Delhi University's nod for nine postgraduate medical courses proposed at the Indian Railways Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (IRPGIMSR) under the Northern Railway Central Hospital, subject to permission from the National Medical Commission.

The courses include PG seats in anaesthesia, general medicine, surgery, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, and other disciplines.

Amendments to PhD coursework guidelines, effective from 2025-26, were also approved during the meeting to bring uniformity across departments. The framework prescribes 12-16 credits, mandating components such as research methodology, publication ethics, and research tools. New guidelines were notified for granting financial assistance to DU delegates presenting papers at top-ranked institutions or reputed national bodies in India, with provisions for evaluating the standing of non-academic organisers.

Several elected AC members, however, raised strong concerns.

In a statement, John said she submitted multiple "notes of action" highlighting anomalies in the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) implementation, confusion over retracted generic elective (GE) notifications, denial of discipline-specific elective (DSE) options to BA multidisciplinary students, and issues with the December exam date-sheet.

She also flagged complaints of irregularities in screening and interview processes for permanent posts, urging the constitution of a fact-finding committee.

She further opposed the recent academic performance indicators (API) benchmark for guest faculty and demanded reconsideration of guidelines on conference travel grants, objecting to their retrospective placement before the AC.

Multiple dissent notes were submitted on syllabi-framing processes, fourth-year guidelines under the Undergraduate Curriculum Framework (UGCF), and the issuance of key notifications through emergency powers without adequate deliberation in statutory bodies.

AC member Monami Sinha raised the issue of the assault on Prof Sujit Kumar at the Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, terming the two-month suspension of a student leader "inadequate" and demanding an impartial inquiry and strong disciplinary action.

Sinha also highlighted serious gaps in the fourth-year dissertation guidelines issued on September 30, stating that teachers and students continue to face uncertainty due to frequent revisions. She described several requirements -- such as a 120-page translation component, dual external evaluation in the entrepreneurship track, and geo-tagged video submissions -- as impractical for undergraduate students. PTI MHS PRK PRK