English leaves regional language courses tongue-tied
As admissions to popular courses under BA Honours are now closed at most colleges in the Delhi University, regional language courses are still struggling to get entries. Though Sanskrit Honours has managed to fill up a reasonable amount of seats in few colleges like Miranda House and Ramjas, courses like BA (H) in Bengali, Punjabi and Urdu have still only got singular numbered admissions across the university. While authorities said that seats will fill up at a later stage, student volunteers say the attention has shifted to English Honours this year.
For several years, languages have usually filled up at last, but this kind of a low response has never been seen. Officials at colleges like Kirori Mal and Miranda House said that only seven or eight students were admitted under these courses. “There is never a rush for language courses but this time it is a little slow. Surprisingly, courses like Arabic have got more admissions than Bengali,” said an official. Admissions in language courses are a cake walk because of their eligibility and low cut-offs. However, Zakir Hussain College still has all its categories open for admission in the regional languages Honours course. Even PGDAV and Shyama Prasad Mukherji College had admissions open for these courses at very low cut-offs. DU offers six regional languages — Sanskrit, Arabic, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu and Persian.