Delhi University (DU) may either do away with the system of reserving 50 per cent seats for students, who have graduated from the university itself, in admission to its postgraduate (PG) courses, or will make some “tie-breaker” formulae in order to save this reservation.
Half of the seats in postgraduate courses are filled with entrance test while the rest are reserved for the graduates from Delhi University, admission against which is made on merit based on marks.
The admission committee of DU formed to frame rules and policies for admission to academic session 2018-19 is facing a ‘dilemma’ as the very first batch of students who would graduate after the implementation of Choice-Based Credit System (CBCS) in DU would also apply for PG admissions this year.
This is so because grades are awarded under CBCS and not the marks as earlier, therefore several candidates having the same grade will apply for the PG admissions.
“Hundreds of students having the same grade will apply for the PG. In that condition, it would become really hard to decide to whom to give admission,” said an admission committee member requesting anonymity. He said to overcome this ‘roadblock’ due to award of grades under CBCS admission committee is mulling on two options, either to frame some “tie-breaker” formulae that will help in deciding the eligibility of candidates or to completely do away with the system of giving 50 per cent reservation in seats to graduates of DU.
“Framing “tie-breaker” formula is not easy at all as several things are to be decided and consulted with stakeholders before reaching any such formulae. There are also many complexities and technicalities involved in it that are certainly not easy to overcome. In such situation we are left with only the second option that is to make admissions to all PG seats through exam,” said the member, requesting anonymity.
Another admission committee member told that if “tie-breaker” formula is reached then the 50 percent seats for the DU students in PG would be reserved as earlier. However, if any such formula is made then only academic criterion would be included in it while the non-academic criteria like age of a candidate are to be ignored.
Also, admission committee is seriously mulling on “shrinking” the number of cut-off lists for Undergraduate admission this year to only 5-6 cut offs. DU last year came up with 11 cut-offs. The Pioneer was the first to break this story on January 13 that number of cut-off list would shrink for this year.
Admission committee member said that this is being done in order to cut-short the lengthy admission process with huge number of cut-offs. He said that after the 5-6 cut-offs, the left over seats would be filled up by giving “open chance” to the candidates who cannot make through the cut-offs. However, in the “open chance” also the admission would be entirely on the basis of marks and preference would be given to the candidates who are very close to the last cut-off.