DU hints at conducting an entrance test instead of merit-based admission 2021. Students have been raising their concern for fair means of admission in the colleges and demanding CUCET after the Central Board of Secondary education(CBSE) on 1st June released a notice announcing the cancellation of board exams of class 12th because of the covid-19 pandemic.
While India prepares for the expected third wave of coronavirus, in view of safety CBSE announced the cancellation of class 12th boards examinations. Cancellation of the board exams rose mixed response where some students were relieved that their safety won’t be comprised in this situation of the pandemic if and when the third wave strikes. Other students thought this decision to be unfair for their further studies. Students have now been demanding to conduct Central Universities Common Entrance Test(CUCET) for Universities like DU, IPU for fair admissions. Merit-based evaluation will be highly unfair as the board evaluation can be easily corrupted by the undeserving and rich, said, students. CUCET results will fairly decide the deserving candidature for the colleges.
Delhi University is one of the colleges students are most concerned about. DU has a merit-based admission procedure for students to pursue theirs under graduation. Delhi University has not officially announced how they will be accepting students this year but the university has already announced that it will continue to skip trials to admit students under the sports and extracurricular activities (ECA) quotas. Union education ministry and DU admissions chairperson hinted that they may conduct CUCET. Rajiv Gupta chairperson DU admissions said,“We have almost decided to conduct sports and ECA admissions on the basis of merit certificates only since it won’t be possible for the university to conduct trials this year as well… knowing that some part of the country might be under lockdown at the time of the process and it will be unfair to the students,” DU still awaits CBSE decision on the evaluation added Gupta.
DU acting vice-chancellor (V-C) and Centre’s CUCET committee member, PC Joshi said, “We are waiting for CBSE to announce the criteria so that we can sit and brainstorm. We need to dissect the evaluation process and see if it will be at par with the criteria adopted by other state boards as well.” He also added that a common entrance test was the best option in the present scenario. “It can bring students from across the education boards at one level. In case DU is not satisfied with the evaluation criteria adopted by CBSE, from where we receive the maximum number of students, we can give 100% weightage to CUCET scores. Otherwise, it will become a big challenge for DU to take admission only on the basis of Class 12 marks,” he said.
A senior official at the Ministry of education told Hindustan Times,” The government is seriously considering introducing CUCET this year in line with New Education Policy 2020. A final call is expected soon in this regard.”
CBSE’s notice mentioned that the evaluation will be made as per well defined objective criteria in a time-bound manner. CBSE also gave an option for students who are not satisfied with the assessment to appear in the examination provided by the CBSE as and when the situation becomes conducive. The official evaluation criteria for the students by CBSE awaits.
