New four-year undergraduate course at DU to start in June

Mere presence at an exam will soon be enough to ensure success at Delhi University, as students scoring even a “zero” will be promoted from class-to-class under the new four-year undergraduate course starting June.

“The only catch to the scheme is that a student has to have an aggregate score of 45 per cent in his theory papers if he has to get his associate degree at the end of two years or a degree at the end of three years,” said S. K. Garg, a key member of the admissions committee which took the decision recently. He added that 50 per cent in the aggregate is all that is required for the Honours degree.

There are separate benchmarks for practical papers, especially in science courses.

The special scheme of the four-year course is that once you have exited, you can always come back for a higher degree after a while. “A time limit of eight years has been fixed within which even the honours degree has to be completed or else the student will lose his chance,” added Mr. Garg.

The admissions procedure has mostly remained the same. There will be centralised admission forms and then colleges will have to declare cut-offs, but this time round, a college can list just four cut-offs, unlike in the past where some colleges had even a tenth cut-off list.

The SC/ST admission process will also undergo a slight change, the students will have to register at the university level but their admissions will be done only at the college level, with each college having to declare a separate SC/ST cut-off list. In the past, admissions for SC/ST students were wholly centralised with colleges being allotted for the students, but this time the process is the same as with the general category.