As the University of Delhi has been directed to roll back to its earlier prevalent three-year undergraduate programme, there is a cloud of uncertainty hovering over nearly three lakh students who have applied to the university this year. While the main contention lies in whether the admission process will be deferred or not, students are worried about whether the BA, BCom and BSc programme courses, which were scrapped in the FYUP will be reinstated. The applications for admission in DU this year were filled in context to the FYUP. This means that students have not had the chance to apply to the courses, which were earlier in the TYUP.
The colleges are now in uncertainty about how seats would be distributed in their college since the seats under programme courses were allotted to Honours courses.
Principal of Hindu College, Pradumn Kumar said that this will also affect cutoffs, “For few colleges like the Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) there is not going to be any difference because they never offered any of the scrapped courses. However, for other colleges like ours there will be a problem. If we are bringing back the earlier programme, we should also offer the earlier courses. But in that case cutoffs cannot be released on Tuesday. This needs time to be formulated as we will have to reallocate seats and then deliberate on the cutoffs.”
A few colleges are also playing safe and waiting for the university to revert.
Dr Pratibha Jolly said, “We are hopeful that by Monday morning we will hear from the university. It would not be right to take any step or jump to conclusions before that.” Students are however, the worst-affected. While some students are happy that they will not have to study for four years, most feel that a re-admission should take place in order to accommodate the programme courses.
“The programme courses were an important part of the TYUP and a lot of students have not applied to DU because they were not there. So they should be given a chance,” said Ayush Gupta, a student from Delhi who didn’t apply to DU as he wanted to pursue BA programme.Meher Sandhu, another student was happy with the change. “I want to do Mathematics or Economics Honours and I was considering other universities so that I could study in three years. But with DU coming back to three years, I am thrilled,” she said.
Existing students are also happy with the change as their curriculum will be cut short. But BTech students may dropout if their course is converted to a BSc. A bunch of students who were at the university on Sunday said, “We came here to do BTech because we are interested in engineering. We don’t want to do a BSc. We will leave the university if that is the case.”
The university officials are still quiet on the issue. Thus, it is likely that students and principals will have a clear picture only on Monday. Though the Executive Council meeting has been postponed, some deliberation on the matter is expected.