DU plans entrance test for all college admissions in 2019

From the coming academic year (2019-20), Class XII marks may not be enough to land you a seat in a Delhi University college. The university plans to introduce entrance exam-based admissions for all its undergraduate courses while also giving fixed weightage to Class XII scores. While the details of the entrance-based system are yet to be ironed out, the varsity is hoping to introduce it in the 2019 admission season. “The admission committee is going to take up the matter of entrance exams with regard to the admission process of 2019-20. The committee is an independent panel that has education experts, college principals and faculty as members,” DU vice-chancellor Yogesh Tyagi told TOI. The DU admission committee had discussed the issue last year as well but could not reach a consensus. While problems relating to holding of entrance exams was one of the reasons for deferring the plan, it had also met with resistance from faculty members in the admission committee. The panel this year intends to determine whether the entrance exam can be outsourced to the National Testing Agency (NTA), which has recently taken up the responsibility of holding national exams like NET and JEE from CBSE. Asked if the university would consider a role for the NTA, Tyagi said the admission committee would consider that possibility. DU currently conducts computer-based entrance tests for nine undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, while admissions to a majority of undergraduate courses are determined through the aspirant’s scores in his/her best four subjects in the Class XII exams for the arts and commerce streams, and best three subjects for the sciences. In 2017, DU had tentatively reached out to students, especially those in Class XII, for feedback on the proposed switch to an entrance-based admission policy.

Source: Times of India, 20/12/2018