UGC plan to 'root Psychology in national ethos' panned

The University Grants Commission’s (UGC) recommendation to revamp and homogenise syllabi for Psychology courses at undergraduate, post-graduate, and PhD levels across universities has created an uproar among the faculty members at universities in the national Capital. The UGC had stated that the present syllabus was not “rooted in the national ethos”.

Sources in both the Delhi University (DU) and Jamia Millia Islamia claimed that the Commission will introduce the writings of Vivekananda and Aurobindo, which are primarily based on ideals of “nationalism” and “Right-wing ideology”, in the name of Indian ethos.

“The Commission had sent a draft to the Universities last year as well, wherein, it was decided to add the writings of Right-wing ideologues. Many of us had opposed the move, citing the fact that India is a country of multiple ideologies and hence the syllabus of each and every course should reflect that,” a senior Jamia faculty member said.

According to a notification issued by the UGC on Thursday, Psychology, as taught in institutions of higher learning, was “not fulfilling the societal needs”. Therefore, an expert committee has prepared a new syllabi for the BA/BSc, MA/MSc, and PhD courses, taking into consideration the “developments in the field of psychology with special relevance to the Indian context”.

“Now we don’t know what changes have been made by the committee in this new syllabi as we have not received a copy so far,” the faculty member said. 

Also resisting the move, a senior DU faculty member said: “Psychology is a very western concept and it’s not easy to Indianise it suddenly. The Commission should have considered several things, such as non-availability of study material, before reaching to any conclusion.”

Meanwhile, the teachers’ fraternity is also opposed to the UGC decision to “homogenise” syllabus for courses in the subject across universities. “Different Universities have different methods of teaching and introducing same syllabus across universities will only affect the quality of teaching,” said Rajesh Jha, a DU faculty and  an Executive Council (EC) member.

As far as adding national ethos concerned, Jha said: “After the introduction of Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS) system in Universities, a paper on ‘Nationalism and Colonialism’ was removed from the syllabus of BA (H) Political Science course. Now, they are talking about adding national ethos.”