Teachers’ organisations associated with parties that are part of the newly minted INDIA coalition have come together to fight the teacher’s body elections at Delhi University (DU) this year.

Seven teachers’ organisations on Saturday announced their decision to form the Democratic United Teachers’ Alliance and filed a joint presidential candidate in the DU Teachers’ Association (DUTA) elections slated to be held next month. The teachers’ body is now controlled by the BJP-backed National Democratic Teachers’ Front.

Like the Congress, CPM and other Opposition parties are part of INDIA, the Congress-supported Indian National Teachers’ Congress (INTEC), the Aam Admi Party-backed Academic for Action and Development Teachers’ Association (AADTA), and the Left-supported Democratic Teachers’ Front (DTF) are the key players in the Democratic United Teachers’ Alliance.

The other groups are the Common Teachers’ Front, Delhi Teachers’ Initiative, Independent Teachers’ Front for Social Justice and the Samajwadi Shikshak Manch.

These organisations used to fight elections at DU separately till last year.

They have announced that Aditya Narayan Misra, former DUTA president and now associated with the AADTA, will be their joint candidate for the post of DUTA president. Over 10,000 teachers at DU will elect the DUTA president and 15 executive members. The 16 elected persons will later elect the vice-president, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer.

Rajesh Jha, a faculty member of Rajdhani College, said DUTA had played an important role in the policy affairs of the university in the past. It expresses the voice of every teacher and tries to protect the character of a public university, he said.

Jha said the Academic Council of the university on Friday approved the launch of an integrated law programme with a fee of Rs 1.9 lakh per annum. The programme
will engage contractual teachers.

“The government wants to reduce funding to the public universities. The University Grants Commission comes up with a policy to shift the financial burden to run the courses to the students. Students from poor and deprived sections will suffer the most. DUTA has a greater role to play now to raise issues of public interest,” Jha said.

Pankaj Garg, chairman of the INTEC, said the UGC had pushed the public universities to increase the teacher-student ratio so that the sanctioned posts are not reduced. The ratio of 40 students per class at the undergraduate level has been revised to 60.

“If there are less than 20 students in any course, they will go to cluster colleges (where students from several colleges study together). Many language subjects will not have 20 students. This clause will discourage students from taking language subjects contrary to the recommendations of the National Education Policy which promotes education in Indian languages,” Garg said.

He said the UGC had not sanctioned any new teaching post at DU while the number of seats had been increased on account of the newly introduced quota for the economically weaker sections.

In a media release, the Democratic United Teachers’ Alliance said it would fight for the absorption of ad-hoc and temporary teachers and the reinstatement of those who had been displaced in the past two years. It will also demand the restoration of the Old Pension Scheme.