DU B Tech students stage protest outside UGC office

NEW DELHI: With the Delhi University scrapping its controversial four-year undergraduate programme, several B Tech students of DU staged a protest outside the UGC office here today demanding that their four-year curriculum should not be changed into a three-year course.

Under pressure from UGC to act on its directive, DU today scrapped FYUP and reverted to the previous 3-year structure, with the fate of the students enrolled in B Tech courses still unknown.

The agitating students demanded that their course should not be converted to B SC and said that they would continue to protest "indefinitely" till a written assurance on the same is given by the Commission.

"If B Tech degree is converted into B SC, this will be an injustice as we had enrolled in the Delhi University for a B Tech degree and we expect to obtain the same," Arjun Malhotra, a student of B Tech in Computer Science, said.

The Delhi University had introduced six B Tech courses in its curriculum under FYUP last year.

Earlier in the day, when asked about the fate of students pursuing four-year B Tech courses, DU Pro-Vice Chancellor Sudheesh Pachauri had said that "as of now the statement of the VC is our text. We do not know anything less or more".

In a statement issued this afternoon, DU Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh asked principals of various colleges affiliated to the varsity to start admissions for the new session under scheme of courses that were in force in academic session 2012-13.

The B Tech students had also submitted a memorandum to senior UGC official on June 25 demanding that their interests be taken into consideration while deciding on how to seamlessly migrate to the three-year course.

Another DU B Tech student Ansh Goyal said, "We had submitted a memorandum to the senior UGC official and had urged them to take our interests into consideration, but they ignored our demands."

"If converted to B SC, the degree won't hold any market value," he added.