After 15 years, hostel no longer mandatory for Vidyapith students

Shedding light on the latest move, Gujarat Vidyapith Vice-Chancellor Prof. Bharat Joshi told The Indian Express, “There was a demand from both teachers and students for quite some time that the hostel facility should not be made compulsory.”

Gujarat Vidyapith has seven boys’ and three girls’ hostels on the campus that can accommodate around 950 students. It has been a deemed university since 1963.

“There were cases where students from Ahmedabad were made to stay on the campus. Even wards of Gujarat Vidyapith staff members living on the campus had to stay in the hostel. Keeping such cases in mind, it was decided at a recent meeting to make hostel facility optional for students across faculties from the coming academic session,” Prof Joshi added.

The concept behind mandatory on-campus stay was community living. “Community living is an integral part of Nai Talim, the education pedagogy that Gujarat Vidyapith has accepted and has been trying to propagate. Hence, the hostel becomes an important component of student life. The accommodation facility at Gujarat Vidyapith has been modest and comfortable,” states the university website.

On the latest move, the Vice-Chancellor, however, said: “For community living, hostel life is not mandatory. A student can learn and be taught this through several other measures instead of making him stay on the campus.”

The university takes pride in keeping alive the Gandhian principles of “community work, residential life, social service, community prayers, simple and self-reliant living, study tours and field studies, hand spinning and training in craft work”.

“The chief concern of Gujarat Vidyapith is to conduct experiments in various fields of education with a view to developing the application of Gandhian thought and way in all aspects of education. The teachers and trustees of all the institutions connected with the Vidyapith shall regard hand-spinning as an essential part of the national regeneration movement and shall therefore spin regularly, except for unavoidable reasons, and shall habitually wear khadi,” read the list of objectives by the university.

In December, barely two months after taking over as the Chancellor of the university, Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat made a surprise visit to the varsity. He expressed shock and sadness at the “dilapidated and miserable condition” of the campus during the visit. He had also asked to undertake immediate repair work and ensure cleanliness on the campus.

“He also urged the students living in the hostels to maintain hygiene and requested them to make it an ideal place for education,” an official release issued by the state government stated at the time.

Following the visit, Governor Devvrat launched a cleanliness drive on the campus where nearly 40 truck-loads of garbage were removed in December, according to a Raj Bhavan statement. Devvrat took over as Gujarat Vidyapith Chancellor on October 21 from Elaben Bhatt, who died in November.

Meanwhile, Prof Sudarshan Iyengar, the former Vice Chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapith during whose tenure the hostel rule was made mandatory, continues to back the earlier policy. “Community living under Nai Talim education was the strength of Gujarat Vidyapith. Else, the degrees are equivalent (to other universities) and this was the idea behind making it mandatory which also builds a character by living and working together. After the university’s strength started increasing, the idea to make students live as a community on the campus was brought in place,” he told Indian Express.

The university issued a circular on March 31 to communicate the latest decision to students. “Gujarat Vidyapith’s Board of Management and its Mandal meetings held on March 18 and March 27 respectively had discussed the mandatory rule of hostels for students. At the end of the discussion, it was decided and the resolution passed that from the academic session 2023-24 for all students of higher education the hostel facility will be optional,” the circular stated.

At a meeting held earlier this month, a resolution was passed to make hostels optional for existing students too.