Student outfit protests outside St Stephen's College against interviews for admission

NEW DELHI: The Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) on Friday held a protest demonstration outside Delhi University’s St Stephen’s College calling for the immediate scrapping of the interview requirement for admission.

While the Delhi University has asked St. Stephen’s College to grant admissions for general category students based on the Common Universities Entrance Test scores and hold interviews only for the “reserved” seats on an 85:15 ratio, the college has maintained that it will continue to hold interviews for all candidates.

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The college reserves 50 per cent of its seats for Christian students. The KYS members also burnt an effigy of the college principal after he allegedly refused to meet them. "This is an elitist tradition, as the only reason to conduct interviews is to select the most elite students for admission into the college. The criterion has been persistently used to deny the students from deprived backgrounds from gaining entry into the college, and thereby maintain the elitism of granting admission and perpetuating the privilege of select clans and families," KYS alleged in a statement.

"This is outrightly pathetic and stands in contrast to the historic struggles such as that of Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule against ending privileges in education," it added. The student outfit also demanded that an evening batch be started in the college.