The Hindu : New Delhi News : Morning-evening divide haunts Delhi colleges

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Morning-evening divide haunts Delhi colleges

Urvashi Sarkar

Ram Lal Anand (Evening) College dissatisfied with its state of affairs

NEW DELHI: Following the move by Deshbandhu College (Evening) to delink itself from Deshbandhu College (Morning), Ram Lal Anand (Evening) College too has expressed dissatisfaction over its state of affairs.

Ram Lal College (Evening) Principal Dr. S.C. Sharma said: “The morning and evening colleges use the infrastructure on a time-sharing basis. There is some overlapping of classes and infrastructure which has created problems. Some classes of the morning college continue till 4-20 p.m. It becomes nearly impossible for the evening college to conduct its full length of classes.”

“The general mind-set of morning colleges is that evening colleges must use the residual facilities,” he added.

Girl students too have a problem with attending the evening college owing to transport difficulties and lack of safety during evenings.

According to Dr. Sharma, time and infrastructure constraints have prevented the evening college from functioning as a proper college and achieving its potential: “We were running a Bachelor of Information Technology course which had to be scrapped. Delhi University converted it into B.Sc. (Honours) Computer Science which needs specialised infrastructure and technology which we did not have.”

The proposed courses in journalism, and investment and finance too could not materialise.

Dr. Sharma said the university had been repeatedly told that it should work out a policy which would allow morning and evening colleges to grow simultaneously: “We don't mind being an independent morning college structured on courses which are the need of the hour. Since we have certain courses that the morning college does not have, we can proceed in that direction.”

According to some teachers, the concept of evening colleges is becoming redundant as these colleges, which were established to provide higher education to working people, now function in the afternoon during work hours. Thus those employed do not attend evening colleges but prefer open schools and universities, they added.

The Ram Lal Anand Morning and Evening Colleges have received Rs.4.5 crore each to develop facilities for the Other Backward Classes. Both are pooling their shares towards a new building on the college campus.

Economics teacher Associate Professor Harish Dhawan said the new building should either be clearly divided to demarcate the space and infrastructure of the evening college or two separate buildings should come up.

Ram Lal Anand College (Evening) Staff Council secretary Dr. Ashok Sarin said: “We have been given to understand that colleges are free to use their share of the OBC funds as they deem fit. However, the governing body of the colleges has said that the funds must be used jointly and two colleges must function together in the same building and their timings should be mutually exclusive.”

“We brought up our concerns before the governing body last August when it was decided to set up a committee to look into the matter. Since then no meeting of the governing body has been held. The committee has been set up but is not functioning.”

In a resolution passed in 2010, the Staff Council reiterated the need for a separate academic block for exclusive use of the evening college which could be constructed with funds received by the college to expand OBC facilities.

Ram Lal Anand College (Morning) Principal Dr. Vijay Sharma said: “There is a problem of shortage of time and space for both colleges. It is best if the two colleges have separate buildings and facilities. Earlier the evening college would start at 6 p.m. but the timings have been increasingly pushed back which is fine to an extent, beyond which there are clashes and conflicts between the two colleges.”

“Two colleges cannot simultaneously function in one building as it causes a tremendous strain on water, electricity, parking and other shared resources,” he added.

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