G S Asgotra
Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 29: On one hand the Government claims that it wants to mobilize youngsters into educational institutions under different education schemes, whereas on other hand, contrary to Union government's claim, the Directorate of Distance Education (DDE) of Jammu University (JU), seems determined to deprive the marginalized rural students to obtain higher education.
Defeating the purposes of Distance education, the JU has clearly and boldly mentioned in distance website that the purpose to establish DDE was to enhance advancement of knowledge of those students, who due to unexpected reasons, have been not enable to obtain regular higher education.
But in recent notification of DDE, it has been clearly mentioned that those students who have graduation under 10+2+3 pattern with English literature as an elective subject or Graduation under 10+2+3 pattern in any other discipline with 60 percents marks would be ellegible in different stream like English, Hindi, Urdu, Sociology and Commerce while those who have less than 60 percent marks would not be ellegible for these courses in distance mode.
A professor, informed Early Times that the DDE has passed the new guidelines without the consent of JU authority due to which, most students belonging to rural areas as well as weak section of the society have been deprived of the higher education. "Secondly, it has been also introducing, propagating an elite culture in distance mode and becoming a institution as industry which generates more profit by increasing fee in every passing year", he asserted.
Castigating the JU authority, a student Meenu Sharma said that she has been done graduation with 49 marks, in social science stream but due to lack of one percent, I have not been able to obtain higher education, adding, "I had thought I would be enrolled in B.Ed course but they also denied admission, while the huge numbers of seats are available in different private colleges", he asserted.
He said that due to lackadaisical approach of JU towards marginalized rural students could be gauged from the fact that it seems determined to spoil the future of rural students, as one hand, the varsity had already restricted the students for improvement at graduation level and on other hand it has fixed the criteria (60% marks) to enroll in different PG courses in distance mode. "Due to this, only one elite section has got access to higher education".
The correspondent repeatedly contacted Director of Distance Education, Vijay Dev Singh but he was not available for comments. |
