The standoff between the University Grants Commission (UGC) and Delhi University administration over the four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) has left two lakh applicants in the lurch with colleges on Monday deciding to defer admissions.
Hours before the declaration of the first cut-off list for undergraduate admissions, DU colleges announced that the admission process has been deferred owing to ?conflicting guidelines? from the university administration and the UGC.
In a meeting of the Delhi University Principals? Association on Monday evening, principals from 36 colleges decided that cut-off lists could not be declared. Those who could not attend the meeting too agreed to the resolution regarding deferring of admissions.
?In view of the recent developments and the seriousness of the situation regarding the conflicting guidelines of University of Delhi and University Grants Commission regarding admissions 2014-15, the Principal?s Association has no option but to resolve to defer the process of admissions till unambiguous guidelines are received by the colleges from the competent authority,? a statement from DU Principals? Association said.
Shri Ram College of Commerce, in fact, announced the cut-offs for two undergraduate courses ? Commerce and Economics ? by 6 pm. A few hours later, however, the college announced that it was deferring the admission process.
SRCC principal P C Jain said, ?In light of the Principals? Association meeting, we have decided to defer admissions. We want to wait and watch what action the university and the UGC take on the issue.?
Most principals said the only communication they had received from DU was a letter from the Registrar which mentioned the UGC letters and called them ?self-explanatory?. Finding themselves in a fix over the directives from the UGC and the university administration, colleges maintained that there was a ?lot of confusion? on the issue and they could not continue with the admission process.
Ahead of the declaration of cut-offs, DU sends data of applicants to all colleges. On the basis of this data ? details of applicants to various courses and colleges ? the colleges decide cut-offs for various disciplines and send their lists to the university administration which announces them.
With students having applied to the FYUP this time, colleges said there was no point in looking at data of the applicants.
S Lakshmi Devi, principal of Shaheed Rajguru College of Applied Sciences, said, ?The prospectus is on the four-year programme and students have applied for courses under that programme. If the four-year course is being rolled back, then how can we decide cut-offs on the basis of this data??
A rollback of the four-year course would also entail a re-introduction of the Pass/Programme courses which had been done away with last year. ?We have no information about applicants for the Pass courses since applications had not been invited for them,? Devi said.
