DU set to increase classroom strength for practicals, tutorials

However, the strength of tutorial and practical classrooms will witness an increase from a small group of 10-12 students to about 20 this year.

The decisions have been taken with a view to observe uniformity in teacher- student ratio, as per the varsity’s official notification.

As per the notification, the lecture classroom sizes for both undergraduate and postgraduate remains the same as it was under the Choice-Based Credit System.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Director of South Campus, DU, Shri Prakash Singh said: “Teacher taught ratio at UG level has always been changing. When OBC quota came into place, the ratio of teacher- student was 1:20 and now it has become 1:30. Secondly, the tutorial classes ratio earlier had smaller groups of students of about 10-12 in number which have now been increased to a group of 20 students.”

He further said, “Following discussion with stakeholders, 60 batch size is normal in colleges; to give this a uniformity, the tutorial and practical sizes have been made to 20 students each … this will be applicable to both Postgraduate and Undergraduate. There is no change in lecture class room sizes.”

The notification further stated: “In UG, minimum number of students for any course shall be 20.” In case adequate students are not available, cluster of colleges should come together, it added.

The Indian Express spoke to teachers at the university who expressed their concerns on this move.

“The class size of minimum of 20 would close down some optional papers where we may have less than 20 due to multiple optional papers…The honours class size, tutorial size and practical size increase would definitely negatively adverse the workload,” said Tanvir Aeijaz, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science at Ramjas College.

Rudrashish Chakraborty, Associate Professor, Department of English, Kirori Mal College said, “The class size under CBCS in undergraduate used to be 40 for honours courses but here they have increased the classroom sizes…the biggest hit is in the tutorial groups. Tutorials used to be a small group interaction between teachers and students…”