Objections over Delhi University’s decision of not conducting extracurricular activities (ECA) admissions, concerns over sports admission policies and contactless admission process took centre stage at a meeting held on Thursday. Gearing to start the registration process for the 2020-2021 academic session, the university had called principals of the 63 colleges for a meeting with its officials.
SP Agarwal, principal of Ramanujan College, said, “Due to the Covid-19 situation, the university has decided to have a contactless admission. However, there was no clarity on how the colleges would know that how many students were interested to take admission in their college, after the declaration of the cutoff. The university informed us that they were developing some tool for the same.”
Many principals objected to the scrapping of the ECA admission. They demanded that it should be conducted on similar lines as that of sports.
Hem Chand Jain, principal of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, said, “We told the university that the policy of no ECA admissions was unfair to students who worked hard to excel in dance, music and other activities. Colleges will miss out on such talented students and the university should reconsider its decision. If there can be admissions in sports category on the basis of certificates, then so should be for ECA.”
One of the principals, however, stated that the university remained non-committal on changing this policy.
Head of the admission branch, Shobha Bagai, said, “Unlike sports which have a defined body at the national, state and district levels, different ECA disciplines do not have that and thus it is not easy to check the veracity of ECA certificates. We also cannot conduct trials in the current scenario as there is a huge risk.”
Some principals also raised concerns over the sports admission policies.
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A principal who wished to remain anonymous, said, “The sports admission marking scheme is so ambiguous that it may spell trouble for the college.”
Bagai told TOI that “the admissions portal may remain open between June 20 and July 4.”
Colleges were told about the decisions taken by the admission branch and approved by the standing committee on admissions. The principals were informed about the need for “no-contact” admissions.
TOI had reported on April 16 that this year students would not have to visit colleges for the physical verification of their documents, which would be eventually done after the session starts.
Anju Srivastava, principal of Hindu College, said that “this will bring a complete overhaul in the admission process. It is the best thing that one can do right now.”
Some principals were concerned about the CBSE exam results on whether the university would have to change its admission policy.
On this, Bagai added, “Currently, we are only looking at the registration dates of June 20 to July 4. We will look into the matter and take a call after what CBSE decides.”
Courtesy: TOI
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