With students from across the country applying for admission to the University of Delhi (DU), cut-offs soaring high and outstation applicants often clueless about procedures, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) wants the university to put in place an elaborate counselling system for students, to streamline the admission process.
‘So many colleges’
“There are so many colleges but students want to choose from among the top five colleges and this leads to astronomical cut-offs for these colleges. There has to be proper counselling for students to know which colleges and courses are good,” a top source in the MHRD told The Hindu . “People are selecting streams out of peer pressure or their understanding of things. There is no proper counselling system and this is something we want to establish.”
The MHRD told Delhi University weeks ago that it should work towards devising such a system, said the source. “They must counsel and help students. One seat in the University costs the central exchequer ₹ 2.5 lakhs and seats should be filled through a smooth, informed process,” he added.
As of now, the system of providing help is more informal, with some student organisations helping applicants by putting up help desks. Some of these groups, like the All Assamese Students Association (AASA) or the Naga Students’ Union look at students coming from specific regions.
AASA’s general secretary Mrigen Jyoti Kashyap told The Hindu that 1,500 students from Assam have already contacted the organisation.
“It is a two- month-long process. Even today, we are organising an orientation programme at the Assam Bhawan, in which eminent Professors will interact with guardians and answer their queries regarding admissions,” he said. “
He said that while there were some networks used by political organisations to help students, there was still no official counselling from the university itself for the large numbers of students wishing to take admission here.
