DU Executive Council clears CUCET for admission from 2022; Two dissent

NEW DELHI: The Delhi University Executive Council (EC) on Friday, December 17, gave its nod to holding a Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET) for admissions to its various undergraduate programmes from the 2022 academic year onwards. The decision was passed with two dissents from the EC members.

The Executive Council took the decision in a meeting held today where significant issues like appointment of international adjunct faculty, team of vice-chancellor, among others were discussed. Rajni Abbi, former Delhi mayor from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been today appointed as Delhi University proctor during the meeting. The DU Executive Council meeting was held after the senior Delhi University officials, including pro-vice-chancellor PC Joshi,Proctor Neeta Sehgal and Dean of Students Welfare Rajeev Gupta tendered their resignations on Thursday.

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During the meeting, the council members urged the vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh that the non-teaching contractual employees of the university should be exempted from preliminary tests of recruitment. The tests for next level should include well-defined syllabus and aspects related to the services at the Central Universities.

On December 10, the university's Academic Council (AC) had approved holding a common entrance test for Delhi University admissions. The Delhi University AC went with the recommendation of the nine-member DU committee, set up by the DU Vice Chancellor, which had suggested holding a common entrance test.

The decision was however passed amid dissents from council members. Dissenting members noted that the committee who framed the report did not include AC members. They also said that the report only takes into consideration the academic session of 2021-22 which was affected by the pandemic and that any change to "tried and tested" admission procedures can only be justified with data analysis for "substantial period of time".

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All central universities, including Delhi University, are also discussing the implementation of the nation-wide CUCET following a report by the University Grants Commission (UGC) committee. CUCET was also envisaged in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.