DU expands capacity of UG classes to 60 students, raises PG limit to 50, professors oppose move

The NEP states that student-teacher ratio should be between 10-20 students per teacher. Another framework, adopted by DU, suggests practical classes should have 8-15 students.

Delhi University Arts Faculty | Representational image | Commons

New Delhi: An undergraduate class in Delhi University can now have 60 students for lectures, 30 for tutorials and 25 for practicals, while a postgraduate class will be able to accommodate 50 students, with 25 for tutorial classes and 15-20 for practicals.

The change was announced via a notification dated 11 November, that stated the move was being executed to “observe uniformity in the teacher-student ratio in all programmes being offered by the University and its college”. The notice specified the size of classrooms in terms of the number of students.

“The college may decide on mentor and mentee group size as per the relevant provisions of the University Grants Commission’s regulations as applicable from time to time,” the notification read.

However, the National Education Policy 2020 puts the student-teacher ratio between 10-20 students per teacher.

“The teacher-student ratio shall range from 1:10 to 1:20 depending on the programme. The teaching duties shall allow time for students, conducting research, and other university activities,” the document states.

Meanwhile, the Learning Outcome-based Programme Framework (LOCF) – which was adopted by the University in 2019 – has syllabus framed by different departments for various programmes and some of the requirements for practical classes limit the capacity to 8-15 students.

Professors call move a ‘travesty’

Professor Nandita Narayan of the Democratic Teachers Front, in a statement, called the move a ‘travesty’ and a ‘desperate act’ and said this could severely impact the quality of teaching and learning happening in a classroom.

The statement read: “A tutorial size of 30 students is a travesty. It completely undermines the very basis of having a tutorial system both in terms of the academic and workload dimensions of the teaching learning process.

“This notification looks like a desperate act by the University to ‘create’ teachers for the 4th year of the Four Year Undergraduate Undergraduate Programme that was imposed this year. All this, as the Government remains silent over additional grants and teaching posts required for the Undergraduate Curriculum Framework (UGCF) structure which offers many more options and a fourth year of study.”

While the Action and Development Teachers Association (AADTA) alleged that the expansion was pushing education to a poor state and that “the notification aimed to reduce the requirements of teachers, which will have a cumulative effect on the quality of education”.