Tag: delhi university

‘Common entrance test for central universities to take off soon’

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NEW DELHI: Multiple exit and entry scheme, technical courses in regional languages and common entrance for central universities are going to be some of the National Education Policy 2020 plans which will be implemented from this year. A 40-member implementation committee under the secretary of higher education is making the annual plans and ensuring its implementation. Amit Khare, secretary, higher education speaks to the TOI on the implementation strategy for the 2021-22 academic session.

What is the implementation plan in 2021-22?

NEP 2020 will be implemented in phases as all the higher educational institutions are not at the same level. One size fits all will not be there. Every State and university will move in the direction of NEP, but not necessarily together. For the 2021-22 academic session, we are planning about 10 new activities.

The academic bank of credit that will be ready by May-June. The outcome of the academic bank of credit will be multiple entry and exit schemes, but in the same institutions within three years. The ultimate goal is to have cluster universities where people can move from one university to another with the academic bank of credit, but not right now since the credits and their scores of different institutions including IITs are different. Third initiative is the National Research Foundation for which the approval of expenditure from the finance committee has already come. Hopefully NRF will also be in place in April or May.

What is the status of common entrance test for central universities?


The CUCET is almost ready. It will be conducted by NTA and computer based. The only issue under discussion with the UGC is the weightage. If the weightage of CUCET is kept high, then students will not take interest in school exams. Even Delhi University is thinking on those lines and looking into how much weightage should be given to class XII. Within class XII also different boards have different levels of giving marks. So, what will be the system of normalising is something that has been worked out. CUCET will only be for undergraduate programmes. Postgraduate admissions will continue as before.


The government has announced technical education in regional languages? When is it going to start? Also are the four-year-undergraduate programmes to start from 2021?

For the first year engineering courses, we are developing them in regional languages. This will be in addition to classroom teaching, which will go on in English as usual. For better understanding the students can also read the same thing in their regional language from 2021.

The four-year degree programme will take some time to develop because it is not about adding one more year to the three year and call it a four-year programme. Some will continue to offer three-year programmes for those who need not have a research oriented course.

From 2021 the four-year programme is not likely to start on a large scale. Institutions like Institutions of Eminence, which includes some of the universities like Delhi University, if they are able to design a new course then they can offer. But, if some university is thinking they will just add one year, that will not be the right way.


When is the Higher Education Commission of India Bill to be introduced?


The bill may come in the monsoon session or even later. The draft is ready. We are having discussions with UGC, AICTE and other bodies. Thereafter we will send it to all the universities because HECI will affect even the state universities and private universities. Like NEP, for HECI too we will have all India consultations because there are many issues such as should we have a centralized HECI in Delhi or should we have some regional branches, can some part of the accreditation be done regionally, what should be the structure? What representation should be given to state and private universities? Right now we are having consultation within the Central government. Next stage will be consultations with all state universities, private universities, governors who are Chancellors, and in many places the state education ministers are pro-Chancellors.



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DU mulls mix of boards, entrance for admissions

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With a common entrance test for admissions to central universities on the cards, Delhi University is considering an admission process based 50% on the Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET) and 50% on board exam results.

DU acting vice-chancellor P C Joshi said the university will try to move away from looking at board exam percentages to looking at percentile instead.

Joshi is part of the committee set up by the central government “to consider the issue (of) holding common entrance test at undergraduate level only from the next academic year in central universities to provide a single platform for admission”.

“The centre is coming out with the CUCET, for which several committee meetings have been held and it will be finalised shortly. Once that is done, we will be having weightage for both CUCET and board examinations with 50% for each,” he said.

Delhi University admissions are characterised by sky-high cut-offs every year. Last year, Lady Shri Ram College for Women had 100% cut-offs for three programmes, and 30 courses across colleges had cut-offs over 99%. DU officials had said that the record-high soaring cut-offs had been because around 5,500 of the registered candidates had a ‘best-of-four-subjects’ percentage of 100%.

Joshi said the proposal to consider percentile instead of percentage is part of the drive towards a more standardised way to calculate “merit”.

“We get applicants from education boards across India, of which some are conservative, some are liberal, In ‘X’ board, students of a certain competence are given 100%, while in ‘Y’ board students of the same competence are given 97%. We will try to put them on an even ground to give everyone the best chance. We are trying to evolve a mechanism to determine percentiles keeping in mind these variations, and the NTA will help us with this,” he said.

In 2020, the first cut-off list for DU admissions had been released in the month of October.

Shobha Bagai, who was Dean Admissions for 2020-21, said class 12 marks should not be considered if entrances are being held. “Students choose their subjects after class 10, but sometimes after studying in Class 11 and 12, they may feel that some subjects were not to their liking or they want to focus on just one or two subjects. With the entrance test, they have the option to narrow down, but if class 12 marks are also considered they will have to perform well in all subjects.Why have two ways of testing students and put more pressure on them?” she said.

However, Bagai said that if the Committee decides to consider both class 12 marks and entrance exams, considering percentile over percentage would be a better system.

Former Deputy Dean of Students’ Welfare Gurpreet Tuteja said such a move would bring all Boards at par and class 12 board marks cannot be eliminated. “It is the basic qualification, so that is vital. But entrance will make DU admissions a level-playing field since some Boards always give more scores. When the whole country gives the same paper, we will know where everyone stands,” he said.

Tuteja said percentile is a better marker than percentage since it “normalises different standards”. However, he said it would also be a “very difficult task” for the university to calculate the percentile of each student. “The Boards should give the percentile,” he said.

Hindu College principal Anju Srivastava said it would be a good system but only if the weightage of the entrance test was higher. “Considering the class 12 marks is not a bad idea because it keeps alive the seriousness and importance of the Board exam. But there is no uniformity of standards in the Board marking, so the entrance exam is necessary. It should have more weightage,” she said.

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Delhi University admissions 2021 to be 50% on CUCET, 50% on board exam marks

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With a common entrance test for admissions to central universities on the cards, Delhi University is considering an admission process based 50 per cent on the Central University Common Entrance Test (CUCET) and 50 per cent on board results.

DU vice-chancellor PC Joshi is part of the committee set up by the central government “to consider the issue (of) holding common entrance test at the undergraduate level only from the next academic year in central universities to provide a single platform for admission”.

Read | DU panel makes recommendations for 4-year programme with exit options

“The centre is coming out with the CUCET, for which several committee meetings have been held and it will be finalised shortly. Once that is done, we will be having weightage for both CUCET and board examinations with 50 per cent for each,” he said.

Delhi University admissions are characterised by sky-high cut-offs every year. Last year, Lady Shri Ram College for Women had 100 per cent cut-offs for three programmes, and 30 courses across colleges had cut-offs over 99 per cent. The common entrance test is expected to ease out the unevenness of the common cut-off system, which is caused by different school education boards following different systems of scoring students.

In 2019, the first cut-off list for DU admissions had been released in the month of August.

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Common Entrance Test Scores to be Part of Under Graduate Admissions Process

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Delhi University (DU) is planning to make some changes in its admission process for the undergraduate programmes. The varsity is planning to consider Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET) scores as well as class 12 board exam marks for admissions for the 2021-22 session admissions. The proposal regarding the same has already been sent to the University Grant Commission (UGC).

CUCET is conducted jointly by 14 central universities to offer admission to various UG, PG, and PhD courses offered in participating institutions.

According to a TOI report, the students aspiring to get admission to DU will have to take the aptitude test that comprises of verbal ability, quantitative ability and logical reasoning along with a subject-specific test.

DU vice-chancellor PC Joshi, who is also a member of the MoE committee, said that along with the CUCET score, class 12 marks will also be counted and there would be no comprise on merit. He added that the DU will soon adopt CUCET.

“Naturally, this year admissions would be different. While CUCET final form is still awaited, we have set up our own admission committee in place,” he was quoted as saying. He also said that the varsity will sync their admission on what CUCET suggests. The weightage for class 12 marks and CUCET score will be finalised soon.

Earlier in December, MoE has set up a seven-member committee to recommend the modalities of a common ‘high-quality aptitude test’ for admissions to all central universities. This common entrance test would be conducted by National Testing Agency.

Higher Education Secretary Amit Khare had said that “This is going to be implemented from the 2021-22 session for the central universities.” This decision has been made to offer a high-quality common aptitude test as well as specialized common subject exams in science, humanities, languages, arts and vocational subjects.

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Sisodia urges universities to reflect on how to stop ‘brain drain’

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Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday said the expansion of universities is crucial to improve higher education and urged these institutions to reflect on how to stop the ‘brain drain’.

In his valedictory address at the North Zone Vice Chancellor’s Meet organised by the Association of Indian Universities, he stressed upon the difference between education and human resource development.

“Human Resource Development is a mere tool of education, it is not the foundation of education. It is the role and responsibility of education to ensure that our children are not considered as mere tools or instruments for the world but as thriving human beings,” he said.

Talking about higher education in the post-COVID and post-NEP world, Sisodia, who is also Delhi’s education minister, said there are certain challenges that universities and educators alike face in the current landscape of Indian education.

Read | Budget allocation to education does not match vision of NEP 2020: Sisodia

“The first challenge pertained to the challenge of quantity. We introduced several missions and laws such as Right to Education. We ensured that all children attend school. We created a bumper crop of school graduates. But then the child asks – Where should I go? What should I do now? We don’t have answers,” he said.

Sisodia urged universities to think out of the box to find solutions for the large quantities and lack of enough space for the students in higher education.

“The bottom line is that we can say that students who graduate from our universities and colleges stand at some level of achievement. We cannot decide the maximum success a child can reach, but we can decide the minimum limits for quality education. We should guarantee minimum levels of education.

Read | Indian students continue to fly abroad despite COVID; smaller, less-impacted countries get a boost

“Talk about research. Talk about entrepreneurship in your convocation, that after graduating, our students created jobs for 2000 people. We have to celebrate our job providers,” he said.

Sisodia also implored university chancellors and teachers to be mindful of ‘brain drain’.

“Universities play a big role in the development of a country. They identify talent and nurture it. As a nation, all of us have failed if our students are studying in universities abroad and thereafter contributing to the economy of others,” he said.

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Delhi University reopens 4 more libraries for research scholars, faculty members

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As part of its phased reopening amid COVID-19 outbreak, the Delhi University will allow research scholars and faculty members to access four more libraries across its campuses. After allowing access to the central library last week, the varsity reopened the Central Science Library, Ratan Tata Library, South Delhi Campus Library, and Faculty of Law Library for PhD/ MPhil scholars and faculty members on Monday.

It announced that users will have to make prior registration to use the library facilities from 10 am to 4 pm on week days. “Library facilities under Delhi University Library System (DULS) will be made operational in phases. In the first phase, only bona fide faculty members, PhD/MPhil scholars will be allowed to use library reading room facilities. The reading room facilities would be limited from 10 am to 4 pm during the week days i.e. Monday to Friday,” the university said in a notice. Visitors will have to take permission through e-mail to the librarian before visiting the library.

For the central library, all reading rooms on research floor and three rooms on the ground floor will be available for the visitors. At the Central Science Library, two reading rooms on the first floor will be made available to the visitors, it said. The Ratan Tata Library at the Delhi School of Economics will make the reading hall at the ground floor and the periodical section at first floor accessible to visitors.

While all the floors of the South Delhi Campus Library can be accessed by research scholars, the reading hall at the ground floor and first floor of the Faculty of Law Library will be available to visitors, the notice stated. The library will also allow its members to borrow and return books and no “late return fine” would be charged for the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While it advised the staff handling books to wear gloves, visitors have also been instructed to carry gloves and hand sanitiser and maintain social distancing. “The user/staff who does not adhere to the guidelines would face disciplinary action like cancellation of membership etc,” it said.

The Delhi University (DU) had announced reopening its campus and colleges from February 1 for final-year students who require access to facilities for practical purposes. Schools, colleges and universities across the country were closed in March last year to contain the spread of coronavirus.

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