DU’s minority colleges may have to follow admissions by test rule
NEW DELHI: Admissions to Delhi University’s minority colleges such as St. Stephen’s College and Jesus and Mary College among others from the next academic year could be solely based on the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores, if a proposal in this regard is cleared by the varsity’s statutory decision making bodies this week.
Besides admission to minority colleges, other modalities pertaining to the implementation of the common entrance test for admissions to undergraduate courses from this year will also come up for discussion in the university’s academic council (AC) meeting on Tuesday.
“It was decided that admissions to all minority colleges (including St. Stephen’s College and Jesus and Mary College) affiliated of the Delhi University will be only done through CUET. During centralized counselling, separate merit lists will be generated for unreserved and minority candidates as per the reservation policy,” according to the minutes of the academic council’s standing committee meeting held on March 17.
Fifty per cent of the seats in various courses offered by minority colleges are reserved for students belonging to specific minority communities. St Stephen’s College and Jesus and Mary College are two of the Christian minority institutes under Delhi University. These two college issues their own cutoff lists, separate from the consolidated cutoff list issued by the university during the admission cycle. St. Stephen’s also conducts interviews as part of the admission process. There are also Sikh minority colleges under DU: Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College, Sri Guru Gobind Singh Khalsa College of Commerce, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College, and Mata Sundri College for Women.
DU registrar Vikas Gupta said that since admissions will be conducted through the common entrance from the new academic session, the policy change will apply to all constituent colleges of the university. “The admission process will be the same for all colleges including minority institutes such as St Stephen’s College and Jesus and Mary College. However, they will be able to continue their policies pertaining to the intake of minority students,” said Gupta.
Last year, the university’s academic council and the executive committee adopted a proposal to implement a common entrance test for admissions to undergraduate courses while doing away with the earlier system of admissions based on the cutoff lists that were prepared on the marks scored by the students in their Class 12 examination. The standing committee of the academic council in its meeting on March 17 also recommended that admissions be solely based on scores of the CUET, and no other criteria.
According to the minutes of the meeting, members said that it will not be feasible to include any other criterion on the basis of marks obtained in board examinations. Aspects such as minimum eligibility in a particular subject will not be considered under CUET, members decided. Minimum eligibility may be rephrased as “The candidate must have passed the Class 12 examination or equivalent thereto from a single recognized board”, members of the standing committee suggested.
In case, the subject studied in Class 12 is not mentioned in CUET list, members proposed that candidates may appear in the subject that is similar or closely related to the subject they have studied in Class 12. “Merit will be calculated on the basis of a combination of subjects in which a candidate has appeared in CUET as mentioned in the programme-specific eligibility,” the minutes said.
Further, provisions that offered relaxation to students for studying particular subjects will also cease to exist under the entrance-based admission process. “Conditions like if the candidate studied a particular subject will be given 2% advantage will no longer exist,” the minutes said.
The standing committee also proposed that admission to all supernumerary seats, excluding foreign students, be carried out through CUET. It proposed that for admission to UG courses under the faculty of music and fine arts, 50% weightage will be given each to CUET score and performancebased test.
However, admissions to the School of Open Learning (SOL) and the Non-Collegiate Women Education Board (NCWEB) will continue in line with the past practice of cutoff based admissions, the committee proposed.
The minutes of the meeting also included a tentative blueprint of CUET. As per the tentative structure, the entrance will comprise three sections. Section-I of the paper will include questions on reading comprehension, verbal ability, synonyms and antonyms. Candidates can choose from 13 languages for attempting this section. Section-II will include subject-specific questions and students can choose from 27 subjects that are currently listed under CUET. The number of subjects listed may increase. The third section of the paper will include two sub-sections. While one sub-section will include general knowledge and mental ability questions, the second sub-section will include questions on languages besides the one only allowed in section I.
If the proposed changes are approved by the AC during its meeting on Tuesday, the proposal will require final approval from the university’s executive council. The next EC meeting is also expected to take place next week.
EC member Seema Das said the supplementary agenda was shared only a few days ago, and while stakeholders were studying the same, the reservation policies in minority institutes should remain unchanged.