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Students of Delhi University’s School of Open Learning (SOL) staged a protest on February 7, 2017, in front of University Grants Commission (UGC) office. The students claimed that UGC must withdraw its directive which indicates that DU should mention the mode of learning on the degrees awarded by it. The students termed the decision of UGC as ‘devaluation’ and demanded that UGC rollback its decision.
Earlier, UGC had issued guidelines which mandated mentioning of ‘Mode of Delivery’ on the documents issued to distance learning or correspondence students. The UGC had taken this decision to mitigate ambiguities between regular or conventional mode degrees and ODL degrees.
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One of the students expressed that most of the students who pursue a degree in distance mode are from marginalised and disadvantaged sections of society. Therefore, this kind of decision will reduce the chance of employability. He further explained that already the students who are pursuing correspondence degree have minimum chances of getting employment and UGC’s decision will affect the career of the students.
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Another student of SOL explained that regular degree holders would be given top priority for jobs and correspondence degree holders will be an option. Therefore, if the varsity mentions the mode of learning on the certificate, it will affect their chances of getting employed even though they have a good percentage.
The students submitted a memorandum to the University and Grants Commission and urged them to rollback the decision as early as possible.
