The DU Standing Committee raised concerns regarding syllabus change

The Standing Committee of the University of Delhi has expressed opposition to certain aspects of the syllabus of the postgraduate course in Economics, thus giving a fillip to a debate regarding the scope and manner of offering courses related to gender issues. The controversial topic came up at a meeting of the committee held on Monday, during which certain elective courses offered in the second semester of the two-year MA in Economics course were put to the table.

It so happened that one of the electives challenged in the complaint was the one named "Economics and Gender." Objections in this respect were raised against some of the units required in the syllabuses on behalf of the NDTF. The objection was made strongly in relation to Unit 3, which was titled "Crime and Gender," discussing intimate violence, domestic violence, as well as violence against women.

One of the committee members, Monami Sinha, added, 'There were issues about whether these were contextualized enough from an economics perspective, as well as issues about how the syllabus was presented, such that one could see how these topics were relevant.' The thread of this conversation also raised various recommendations about possibly needing to rework or restructure the coursework.

She supported the inclusion of this unit at a time when there were concerns about it, and she asserted that “Gender based violence is an emerging field of economic studies, that has been identified and explored through a substantial amount of literature related to the economic cost of violence against women.”

It was further highlighted that the department also drew attention to the point that “Gender-related constraints (safety, social norms, unequal opportunities) have identifiable economic effects and are increasingly studied in the context of development economics, labour economics, and public policy.”

The Standing Committee is likely to continue deliberations on proposed elective courses and may perhaps make some changes to the syllabi before finally passing them. This is likely to impact how interdisciplinary programs such as gender studies are to be integrated in economics programs at Delhi University in light of debates on changing curricula in higher education in India.