This year marked the first time that Delhi University relied on the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admission into undergraduate courses. Speaking at an Idea Exchange session at the Indian Express, the university’s Vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh revealed that CBSE students have an “inherent advantage” in CUET-based admissions. He said more options regarding the questionnaires provided to students could help students coming from state boards.
Singh’s comments come at a time when there is some clarity on the number of shootings as the first cycle of CUET-based shootings wraps up. The VC said using the NCERT curriculum for CUET gives CBSE Board students a competitive advantage.
DU had introduced CUET as an admissions medium to resolve the disparity in student enrollment that resulted from differences in the way state boards award grades. While some state governments are relatively lenient in providing figures, others are very strict. “But they are not wrong. They have their own policies and their own systems for assessing their students, their evaluation parameters are very different. But if we allow students all over our country, without any normalization or anything to do with them, some students who come from a very strict administration will not get a fair chance in the whole system,” Singh said.
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According to Singh, 55,000 students were admitted to the university as of November 15. Students coming from the CBSE board made up a large portion of this population, with 47,790 new admissions. The VC said the number is reasonable given that CBSE governance rules across the country. Students from the ICSE board came a close second, with 2000 students going to DU. Another 1280 students were from the Bihar Board.
The further breakdown of admission data suggests that there were 1222 admissions from UP board, 765 students from Rajasthan board, 436 from Haryana board, 350 students from Kerala board, 312 from Madhya Pradesh board, 278 from Jammu and Kashmir and 153 from the Jharkhand board. Since this was the varsity’s first foray into the CUET, further refinement can be expected in the years to come.
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