DU Academic Council passes CUET amid dissent; members say common test ‘less flexible’

NEW DELHI: The Delhi University academic council passed the common university entrance test (CUET) for UG admission today, March 22, amid dissent. The decision was taken during a meeting held to discuss the changes in the UG admission process from the academic year 2022-23.

This year for the first time, the NTA will be conducting CUCET 2022 for the 45 central universities. However, these universities will have the option to choose the admission process.

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Though the university had passed the common entrance test for admission to its undergraduate programmes, some members of the DU academic council also submitted a dissent note during the DU AC meeting.

“Recent UGC Notification regarding CUET makes it amply clear that the move to replace the UG admission based on Class 12 performance is driven by the policy push from the top rather than the organic need of the system,” a few DU academic council members said in the dissent note.

Referring to DU AC meeting held on December 10, 2021, the members said that it was a “lame exercise done to show support for admissions based on entrance exam”. The members who dissented said that the report only takes into consideration the academic session of 2021-22 which was affected by the pandemic.

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CUCET 2022: Major concerns

• “Admission through CUET will make the terrain even more unequal. Such a filter will result in an additional expenditure of parents and students towards coaching and therefore, marginalises those coming from disadvantageous backgrounds.” it said. It also referred to a recent Madras High Court order. In a case on NEET, the high court had concluded that the entrance exam has benefited only students who spend lakhs of rupees on coaching classes and put rural students at a disadvantage, the Madras HC advised the Centre to take note of it.
• Admissions to UG courses through entrance examination will mean complete erosion of Classes 11 and 12. A central exam and its syllabus will wipe out the importance of local initiatives and the importance of formative assessment.
• Granting admission through CUET will mean total disregard for lab-work associated with disciplines.
• An exam run for crores of students may end up creating the issue of many students with same scores.
• “In imposing a new system starting from 2022-23, we are ignoring the fact that the current batch of Class 12 was forced to study online and maybe finding it difficult to cope with the stress already. This change is too sudden and too huge for them,” the members said.
• The new system will curtail autonomy of institutions to respond to ground realities.
• The suggested system is less flexible than the admission process organically evolved by DU over years.
• By not including elective English in Section 2, the scheme puts students who have studied elective English in Class 12 to a disadvantage. Elective English in CBSE, unlike Core English, is a literature-based course.

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The members also raised questions about the CUCET 2022 and the new admission criterion. It further concluded that “without addressing these key questions, desirability and feasibility of CUET remains unknown. As DU gives admission to over 70,000 students, the admission procedure should not be changed in a rushed manner.”