Common test up in the air, DU considers entrance options

With no clarity over the central universities common entrance test (CUCET) yet, officials at the Delhi University (DU) said they are exploring different ways to conduct undergraduate admissions this year in case it has to go ahead with the merit-based enrolment process

With no clarity over the central universities common entrance test (CUCET) yet, officials at the Delhi University (DU) said they are exploring different ways to conduct undergraduate admissions this year in case it has to go ahead with the merit-based enrolment process.

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Officials said the university is trying to come up with a method to bring all education boards at par since they have adopted different evaluation methods this year following the cancellation of Class 12 exams after the second wave of Covid-19 gripped the country.

DU vice-chancellor (acting) P C Joshi said the university is still hopeful that the Centre will announce the conduct of the CUTET this year because of the unprecedented situation. “There is still a possibility of holding CUCET. However, in case it doesn’t happen and the university feels that the assessment criteria adopted by some boards are more lenient than others, we will have to come up with some policy to bring students at one level. It will be challenging but we cannot do injustice to students. We are working on it and are likely to announce something by the end of this week,” said Joshi.

The University may start the registration process for admissions by the end of this month.

A senior official at the university, who wished not to be named, said the varsity is exploring the possibility of adopting the ‘percentile’ method for admissions in case there is a substantial difference between the results of some education boards.

A percentile is the percentage of students above whom he or she stands on the merit list. For instance, if a student’s score is in the 90th percentile, that means he/she has scored better than 90% of the candidates who took the exam. The same criteria are used for admission in several other courses in India, including engineering and business administration.

“We are trying to see the possibility of adopting the percentile system. We will have to think of other options to moderate the marks of students in case there is a huge difference between the results of different boards. There is a high possibility that this situation may arise since different education boards have opted for different evaluation methods,” said the official.

This year, while the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) decided to evaluate students based on their performances in classes 10, 11, and 12 in 30:30:40 ratio, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) is considering students’ performances in classes 9 to 12.

Different state boards have also opted for various assessment methods. For instance, even as Haryana and Uttar Pradesh boards consider marks of classes 10, 11, and 12 like CBSE, their weightage criteria are different. While Haryana is giving 60% weightage to class 12 performance, UP has fixed it at just 10%. The Odisha board will award marks to Class 12 students based on their performance in Class 10.

Officials said due to the difference in evaluation methods of education boards, it will become very challenging for the university to admit students based on their absolute score. “It will be really challenging to set the cut-off this year as well since a majority of the boards are likely to award higher scores. So, the cut-off is expected to remain high,” said the principal of a north campus college.

Last year, the highest cut-off was announced by the Lady Shri Ram College at 100% for three courses.

Despite several attempts, officials at the UGC and ministry of education did not respond to calls and texts seeking comment on CUCET.