Shiksha Opinion: DU admission drama & what it meant for students

Never in their wildest dreams would students applying for FYUP admissions at Delhi University (DU) this year have imagined that the course itself would be scrapped.  

The DU admission drama unfolded on June 20, 2014 when the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued the first directive to DU to scrap its four year undergraduate programme (FYUP). This came at a time when the first cut-off list was scheduled to be declared on June 24.

On June 23, UGC issued another directive to the university warning that DU should submit a compliance report by forenoon or be ready for dire consequences.

Amid all this, reports started coming in that DU’s VC Dinesh Singh had resigned from his post due to this FYUP rollback issue. This left the applicants dumbfounded by what was going on.

The uncertainty only led to more confusion among students and colleges at DU over the admission process because there was no clarity if the university would actually follow the earlier shared admission schedule or not.

We ask – was this the only way to do this? I feel that a step like this should not have been taken by UGC at such a late stage in the admission process.

The plight of students

Some students who had taken admissions in the bachelor of management studies (BMS) course last year shared that they felt like guinea pigs on whom experiments were being conducted.  And here, both the University as well as UGC should be blamed for all the mess – the University for suddenly introducing FYUP last year and the UGC for forcing to scrap the programme without any prior notice. They also shared that although UGC has formed a committee to help students migrate to a three year course, they are worried about how they will be able to complete their course in three years now and what exactly would be the value of the degree they receive.

Also, students who had shortlisted particular courses are left clueless on what to expect and what not to expect. Due to this sudden FYUP rollback the seats available for admissions have also been cut down. St Stephen’s College which usually holds an independent admission process (not a part of the unified one conducted at DU) had declared its first cut-off list on June 18, 2014. As per FYUP the college was granted 100 seats under its Economics programme and 60 seats for English. However, now that the college had to revert back to its earlier three year undergraduate course seat structure, St Stephen’s could only admit 30 students under English course and 50 under the Economics programme. So, who is bearing the brunt here? It’s the students, of course.

DU deferred its admission process by a week and this delay affected all applicants, especially the outstation students who were left wondering whether to stay back and wait for some consensus to be reached or to head back home and start hunting alternate colleges/universities for admissions in the course of their choice.   

Our take

A decision like this affects the future of students and should not be taken in such a rash manner. Political parties, education boards and authorities should always think through before taking any such decision.

The education system in our country is such that it is not capable of accommodating overnight changes. Authorities such as the UGC with the responsibility to take the baton of education forward, should be best equipped to understand this.

Maybe the concerned authorities introduced FYUP because they felt this would improve the employability of students which would ultimately help the university to rank higher in national as well as world rankings but the point here is that we should first raise the standard of education in our country; recognition and laurels will follow.

Like many others, I also feel that DU should not have introduced FYUP last year. Not because it was a bad idea but primarily because our educational system and infrastructure is not well equipped to support this kind of change right now.

However, once a system (in this case, FYUP) has been brought in place, it cannot just be scrapped a day before the commencement of the admission process leaving students in a fix. Hence, it’s important that  introduction as well as removal of courses at the university level be done in a planned manner  and not at political whims and fancies.