New session, new problems

When Sujeet Kumar, 32, came to Delhi University about seven years ago, he had never been away from the village in Bihar where he was born. He says he always wanted to get out of his village and come to Delhi. But when he did, he felt vulnerable in a big city.  DU was good to him.

“The teachers in Delhi University sometimes offered to pay for my photocopies because I couldn’t afford to pay my fees and also make photocopies worth Rs 10, 000 per year,” says the former DU student, now studying at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

He feels bad now to see the university bad-mouthed. But as another academic season begins at DU, controversies simmer on the campus.

There is the issue of implementing the controversial Choice Based Credit System (CBCS), and there have been protests over the tough posture adopted by the Bar Council of India (BCI) which cut down the number of students that can be admitted to Law Faculty this year.

Some students are uncomfortable with `too many’ changes in the course structure at DU.  
Sreerag Thalippoyil, 21, says when he was planning to get into DU in 2013, the Four Year Undergraduate Programme was in operation. But when he joined in 2014, the same year the university changed it to the old semester system. So Thalippoyil got enrolled under the old system, but his seniors remained under FYUP.  And now, the university has switched to yet another system, the CBCS.

“I wanted to come to DU because I wanted to do a four-year course,” he says.  The FYUP was rolled back after protests by students and teachers. From now on, under the CBCS system, students will be graded in each paper on the basis of the average marks scored by the total number of students appearing for that exam.

“Students will be given a grade relative to the average marks scored in that subject by other students,” says Prerna Gogoi, a first year student. She finds the system is confusing. “There are so many clauses in CBCS system,” she complains.

 She says that she has only heard “bad things” about CBCS. But she is still glad that she is not enrolled under the FYUP badge.

Enrolled in the old semester system, Thalippoyil says that DU has introduced new courses like ‘Ability Enhancement’ which are compulsory.  He is doing English literature and has to do a communication course which is compulsory in his third year. He says that this course has no course book or syllabus drafted by the university.

“Teachers also express their confusion about what to teach in class. But exams will be held anyway,” he sighs.

“When students from outside Delhi come to DU they have large expectations. But I was let down in first year of college. People outside Delhi hear only great things in the media and DU is regarded as the best in the country. But when we come here it is not like that,” says Thalipoyyil.

Law school
Law aspirants are having a particularly bad time. The BCI has delayed admission of first-year students who passed the entrance exam in 2016 to Faculty of Law.

Whereas Faculty of Law has 2,300 seats, BCI has decided to scrap 1,400 seats from this year. Mostly these are seats in evening classes.

But the 1,400 students who have passed the entrance exams feel let down by Delhi University. They have held protests.

“The protests have also died out. But there has been no answer from anyone yet. The media has also stopped reporting on the issue,” says Kawalpreet Kaur, 22, who is one of the aspirants. “We were not informed by DU about this situation. Wwe came to know about the scrapping of seats through the newspaper."

She applied in three colleges and claims to have cleared the entrance exam for all three, ILS Law College, Pune, Government Law College, Mumbai and the Law Faculty at DU.
Since her rank was 860 for Law Faculty, she was certain that she will get through. So she did not take admission at the other colleges.

But now she cannot go to the other two colleges as their admissions have closed. Neither DU, nor is BCI is answerable to the aspirants, she says.

“Political parties like Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), National Students Union of India (NSUI) and All India Students Association (AISA) have held protests and a hunger strike for two days for our cause, but after that even they haven’t spoken for us,” says another aspirant.

 Kawalpreet says it is unacceptable that aspirants should face such a situation after putting themselves to so much stress and competition to get into DU.

 Vidushi Chhabra, a fresher at Jesus & Mary (JMC), says she had imagined DU to be about cultural societies, freshers nights outs, making friends and learning. But since the time of admission there have been hurdles, according to her. Now she just wants to keep her fingers crossed till she gets out of DU.

Vidushi couldn’t get admission in her preferred college even after `qualifying’ for it.
She applied under the Extra Curricular Activities trials (ECA) category, in which students can add up to 15 per cent to their best-of-four aggregate in school and could choose their preferred course in their preferred college.

She gave the ECA trials at JMC and secured her seat there at the beginning of the admission season.  But she wanted to get into Lady Shri Ram College for English (Hons) because LSR, “has a great theatre scene”.

“I got 85 per cent and JMC gave me full 15 per cent extra after my theatre trial, so I took admission there first,” says Vidushi.

She says that she qualified in her theatre trial at LSR. But during the admission process, the college gave priority to the academic score, rather than the theatre trials. “They considered those students first who scored better in their (school) exams before me, even if my marks after ECA trial score were more than them,” says Vidushi.

She feels let down. “Entry into DU was a tumultuous affair. I hope everything from now goes smoothly,” she says.