DU axes BA, BCom prog, lands in confusion

The Delhi University may be all set to roll out a brand new academic reform from the coming academic session but there remain some serious chinks in its plan. Mallica Joshi reports. Needed course correction

The Delhi University may be all set to roll out a brand new academic reform from the coming academic session but there remain some serious chinks in its plan.

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The university has decided to do away with the BA Programme, BSc and BCom Programme in favour of a new four-year honours programme with multiple options for exit. However, nobody is clear about what will happen to the large number of seats that were earlier up for grabs.

In most colleges, the number of seats for BA Programme - the most popular course - is close to 200 while the seats in BSc courses are close to 100. BCom Programme is the most sought after course in the university after BCom (honours and Economics (honours). The seats in this course in most colleges are over 150.

The university has set up a committee to frame guidelines for admissions, examinations and time table. The committee is supposed to look into the nitty-gritty of how the new academic programme will be implemented.

But the committee, which had its first meeting on Friday, could not come up with a concrete suggestion to deal with the problem of seats which now exist without a course.

The admission session in Delhi University starts in June and the highly anticipated cut-off lists depend on the number of seats available in each course.

One of the suggestions that are doing the rounds is that the number of seats in the BA Programme be distributed equally among all disciplines a college offers. A similar exercise can be followed for BCom and BSc courses.

The problem in this case, according to university experts and principals, is that the number of teachers in all subjects is not equal. The number of English teachers, for example, is more as it is the most widely taught subject.

An equal distribution in this case is not ideal.

Another suggestion is to distribute the number of seats according to the number of teachers. But experts feel that would mean increasing the number of seats in subjects such as English and History disproportionately.

Meeting the deadline of March 31 is again an issue. According to a committee member, the time frame given to them is inadequate and questions such as division of seats are of primary concern.

Director, South Campus, Umesh Rai, however, maintained that the process was a simple exercise. Since the admission process starts only in June, there was enough time to work out a solution to these problems, he said.