Posted on 25/11/2023 (GMT 07:00 hrs)
To
The Honourable Chairman,
University Grants Commission (UGC)
To
The Honourable Vice Chancellor,
Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)
Sub: Requesting for Reconsidering the Decision of Readmission by Reconsidering prārabdha and sañcita Credits
Dear Sirs,
As a wilful prodigal person in academiocracy (market-based academic bureaucracy) and a veteran research activist, I wish to bring into your notice the following points regarding retrospective effect of some rules and regulations that bar the continuous academiocratic practices: the search for wis(h)dom.
Firstly, I am trying to show two apparently unrelated instances (as analogy) of rule of the law before going to the main topic of my concern.
1. In the case of TADA and POTA, though repealed in the years 1995 and 2004 respectively, are still applicable in the court of law for those who were arrested before 1995 and before 2004 for detention purposes in the penitentiary.
ABOUT TADA: “The number of people arrested under the [TADA] act had exceeded 76,000, by 30 June 1994. Twenty-five percent of these cases were dropped by the police without any charges being framed. Only 35 percent of the cases were brought to trial, of which 95 percent resulted in acquittals. Less than 2 percent of those arrested were convicted. The TADA act was ultimately repealed and succeeded by the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (2002-2004) and this act was subsequently repealed after much controversy as well. Yet many continue to be held under TADA.” (Source: Wikipedia)⤡ .
ABOUT POTA: “The Act had a built-in expiry date three years after its commencement, vide section 1(6) of the Act. It had commenced on 24 October 2001, so was scheduled to expire on 24 October 2004. One month before its expiry, the Act was repealed on 21 September 2004 by the Prevention of Terrorism (Repeal) Ordinance, 2004, later substituted with the Prevention of Terrorism (Repeal) Act, 2004 (assented to on 21 December 2004). NDA asked UPA to introduce the Act again, but Congress criticized it and did not pass the Act.” ⤡ ⤡
2. In the case of banks’ fixed deposits and recurring deposits, the interest rate at the time of booking the FD/RD is maintained throughout the tenure of the FD/RD (till the DOM), irrespective of any changes in the interest rate afterwards that might occur during the ongoing term of the tenure.
· Thus, in the case of IGNOU, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) etc., analogically speaking, the same logic is to be applied in the context of the old students enrolled under a specific guideline.
Let us go through two examples in this very regard:
Example 1: In the case of NIT, the old PhD regulation (w.e.f. July 2014) stated:
“The minimum publication requirement for submission of a thesis is two journal papers, out of which at least one must be included in the Thomson Reuters citation index of respective stream (engineering, science, arts and humanities, social sciences etc.), with the student being the first author.” (See attached PDF 1, highlighted portion in page no. 10)
A student was enrolled as per the guidelines of the above document in the year 2014, but during his/her PhD course, the rule got changed or revised into the following:
“The minimum publication requirement for submission of the thesis is one journal paper in SCI / SSCI / SCOPUS.” (See attached PDF 2, highlighted portion in page no. 10)
What would be more logical for the erstwhile student, i.e., under which guideline should he/she fall? Obviously under the one that was being maintained at the time of his/her admission. Yet, the practice shows otherwise.
Example 2: In the case of IGNOU,
1. A student took admission for a Bachelor’s Degree in the year 2017.
2. 2016-17 Prospectus published by IGNOU clarified that all students taking admission in that session have 6 years to complete the course (up to 2023) along with additional two years (+2, i.e., 2025) for seeking readmission in the occasion that the student fails to complete the course within 6 years. (See PDF 3)
3. Over and above the prospectus, IGNOU published a notification on 10/06/2018 re-confirming the criteria of 6+2 for completing one’s bachelor’s degree.
“Students who are enrolled till January 2019 session in these Programmes shall be allowed to complete their programme within the maximum validity period of six years. In case they fail to complete all the courses within the maximum validity period, they will be allowed to seek ‘Re-admission’ as per University rules whereby the validity of their registration shall be extended by a further period of two years, subject to the condition that the total period of validity including Re-admission period shall not exceed eight years.” (See PDF 4, highlighted portion)
4. Out of the blue in June 2021, IGNOU withdrew the readmission criteria. The same was maintained from January 1996 till June 2021.
5. The students who could not complete their course by 2023 and are currently seeking readmission are being asked to start anew from the very beginning by appearing for all those papers in which the students have already passed with the required amount of credits as per the eligibility criteria. For pursuing a Masters’ Degree in IGNOU, a minimum of 32 credits is required. Even after the last condition being fulfilled, IGNOU is declining the ability of the student to seek a readmission or transfer their credits. Under the new system of CBCS, the credit transfer facility of Bachelors’ students is no longer available. The student enrolled in 2017 can no longer seek readmission, neither he/she/them can transfer their pre-existing credits under the CBCS system. What will he/she/they do? There is no provision anymore to carry forward the acquired credits. However, one could do that under the framework existing during (and before) 2016 to 2021 June as maintained through the Prospectus cited previously and the notification in the year 2018.
This kind of perplexing situation for the students of IGNOU goes against the latter’s core values, especially its dedication towards “openness” (democratic open access to education for all), “flexibility” (entry, place and pace of learning being flexible) and also the focus of IGNOU on “learner-centric pedagogy”, since in the above account: the learners are the sole sufferers due to the conflict in policy implementation by IGNOU’s administration.
After going through the above points, I think that you will understand the dissemination of knowledge and wisdom is not merely a time-bound project but it is a lifelong search for the stipulated and hypothetical “truth” (?).
Keeping in mind the toils of those academic-aspirants, who are simultaneously struggling for their bread and butter and pursuing their epistemological quest, this is to request you to consider those persons’ readmission by taking cue from their earlier earned credits, viz., by reconsidering their prārabdha cum sañcita Credits.
The decision-makers should consider this point of labour-time spent by those part-time students for the space, “where knowledge is free, where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.” An open university entails the openness of the pursuit of knowledge without any imposed, time-bound constraints.
To conclude, we must remember two ancient aphorisms:
“Since verbal science has no final end. Since life is short, and obstacles impede. Let central facts be picked and firmly fixed. As swans extract the milk with water mixed.” (Pañcatantra)
and
“Ars Longa, Vita Brevis!”
Yours Sincerely,
Dr. Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay
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