B Tech, BMS students face uncertainty in DU

HRD minister Smriti Irani may have scored a victory by making Delhi University scrap its Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP), but the move seems to have thrown up more challenges than offering any real solutions. 

The fate of students pursuing four-year programmes like B-Tech and Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) continues to hang in the balance, as the courses are technically scrapped when DU’s academic and executive councils adopted the resolution to do away with the FYUP and revert to the three-year format. 

The ministry assured that the students’ interests will be protected, as a student delegation met senior officials and insisted that their courses should be allowed to continue. 

Officials, meanwhile, held a meeting to discuss how to deal with the “emerging situations”, as they continue to track developments at DU, sources revealed. 

Their immediate concern is to work on a strategy to start the admission process in colleges affiliated to the varsity as early as possible, while they also discussed ways to migrate students pursuing FYUP programmes from 2013-14 academic year to the three-year structure. 

The ministry also discussed the pros and cons of allowing the B Tech programme to continue on the lines of the suggestions by members of a UGC standing committee set up recently to help the DU on migration from FYUP to the three-year format. 

Hundreds of B-Tech students protested before Shastri Bhawan that houses the HRD ministry and handed a memorandum containing their demands, as Delhi University scrapped the FYUP on Saturday bowing to pressure from the UGC.