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Journalism of Courage
The Delhi High Court has issued notices to the Delhi Technological University (DTU), MHRD, UGC and AICTE after a bunch of students filed a case alleging that the varsity has “misguided” them over the mode of the four-year B.Tech evening programme. The students claim they were admitted to the B.Tech (evening) programme stating that it was a full-time course, but were told later that it was part-time.
“The prospectus does not state that the course is part-time. We only got to know about it after filling an RTI,” said Aparnendu Ram Tripathi, key plaintiff in the case against DTU (formerly known as Delhi College of Engineering). He claimed that while the notification by the university calls the course ‘regular’, the degrees they are getting is that of ‘part-time’ which will reduce their chances of getting a government job.
Sajan Shankar Prasad, who is appearing for the students, confirmed that notices have been issued to the parties concerned. But Dean, Students Welfare, Samsher told indianexpress.com that the university has not received any notice yet, but could defend itself in any court of law. He, however, admitted to a “printing error” from the varsity’s side. “The course has been running for decades now as a part-time course. Students too knew this. Though there was a printing error in defining a student, where it had wrongly been mentioned as regular in the prospectus. But we have made that correction in the 2018 prospectus.” He claimed the students have been misguided by someone.
The official document assessed by the indianexpress.com defines a student as “a student registered for undergraduate program for ‘full-time’ study leading to the bachelor of technology (evening) degree, which is a four-year regular course during the evening hours 6 to 9 pm”.
Students had earlier held protests and written letters to several authorities including Delhi LG and DTU Chancellor Anil Baijal. The students want the court to be made full-time. “We took the same entrance exam and met the same admission criteria, so why are some students considered regular and other part-time. Also, we follow the same curriculum. Had we known that this would be a part-time course we would not have had enrolled for the course,” said Aparnendu.
While students claim that studying in part-time course gives them a disadvantage in government jobs, the Dean thinks otherwise. “The students pursuing this degree are eligible for all types of job, even those who pursue BTech from correspondence mode are eligible for government jobs. However, some organisations demand a full-time degree and that is their personal view,” he said.
