Delhi School of Journalism: High Fees, Inadequate Infrastructure and Barely Any Teachers

Students of the Delhi School of Journalism (DSJ)— the newest department/school of Delhi University which started in August last year— have written to the Vice-Chancellor (VC) detailing the inadequate infrastructure and the lack of permanent teachers in the School.

The Indian Express quoted the letter:

“We, the students of Delhi School of Journalism, want to draw your attention to the fact that we are facing many problems ever since this course has started. We don’t have enough teachers. Last two semesters, we have been taught by only two permanent teachers while the rest of them were guest faculty. This year, our classes have started but no teacher has been appointed yet.”

Out of the sixteen teachers that constitute the total strength of the faculty,  only two are permanent faculty while fourteen are guest faculty.

“The classrooms for the upcoming batch do not even have chairs. In Delhi University, all the first-year classes started from July 20. But due to scarcity of teachers, classrooms and chairs, classes of first-year have not started here yet,” they said in the letter.

The School only offers a ‘Five Year Integrated Program on Journalism’ in both English and Hindi (60 seats in each). One foreign language (out of 4) and one regional language (either Bengali or Tamil) is compulsory for all five years of the program. Students have repeatedly pointed out the lack of representation of regional languages (22 of which are included in the eighth schedule of the constitution) in the program. But the authorities only ask for more time, citing that the school has been running for just under a year. 

Moreover, the course runs on a “self-financing” model, with a yearly fee of Rs. 67,500.  This fee does not include the ‘Caution Deposit’ of Rs. 10,000 that is to be submitted by the student at the time of registration, and is only returned after completion of the Course. Even though after protests by teachers and students, the VC had guaranteed in an Academic Council meeting that the course will be converted into a regular one, and therefore the fees would reduce, there has been no change in fees from the initially proposed amount under the self-financing mode.

This exorbitant amount is much higher than the fees charged for B.A. (Hons/Prog), B.Sc. (Hons/Prog) and B.Com. (Hons/Prog). The fee required for two-year Post-graduate courses including those offered by the Faculty of Social Sciences, of which DSJ is a part, is less than the amount that a DSJ student pays for one semester.

Ever since the school started its first ever batch, it has seen face-offs between the students and the Administration. The University boasts of the five-year course to be one of its kind, but fails to act when students demand for a proper library to be set up since they only have one reading room with a capacity of just 10 people. The students told the media that they still “don’t have any media lab for practicals … and the laptops which were provided last year have been taken back”. They don’t even have a computer lab, and to top it all off, there is no provision for a Students’ Union to be established. This February, students had alleged foul-play during elections of various representative bodies in the school like the debating society, writers’ forum, theatre society et al.