Admit on 3-year pattern, UGC says

NEW DELHI: The standing committee set up by University Grants Commission to advise it and Delhi University on scrapping the four-year-undergraduate programme (FYUP) and reverting to the three-year course held its first meeting on Monday afternoon and proposed a number of measures. It recommended conducting this year’s admissions on the three-year pattern—in line with the 2012-13 admissions—and pointed out the need to protect the interest of students enrolled under FYUP’s BTech programme. The BTech students have been protesting to save their programme as many of them had opted for DU despite having offers from good engineering institutions. 

On Saturday, UGC had constituted the standing committee headed by its vice-chairman, Ved Prakash, with representatives from the academic and executive councils of DU, DU Teachers’ Association (DUTA), DU Students’ Union (DUSU), and principals and teachers, to advise the varsity on the changeover. 

Discussing the strategies for transition to pre-FYUP programmes for the new batch of students, the committee proposed that all the courses that existed till the 2012-13 academic session under the three-year degree should be restored. The committee also stated that seats distributed to honours courses after scrapping BA, BSc and BCom programmes should be restored to the original courses as well. 

DUTA president Nandita Narain, also a member of the committee, said, “It was also proposed that the pre-FYUP courses along with the number of seats in each course should be advertized by each college on its website, and also on the university website. The latter should also display the syllabi of each of these courses”. Narain said the practice of announcing the first cut-off on the basis of past experience, without requiring the students to fill application forms, can be resorted to. “This practice was followed by the university in the year 2012 before FYUP was introduced in 2013. Any student who has the requisite marks can show his/her marks sheet and obtain admission.” 

For the FYUP batch, Narain proposed scrapping all foundation and applied courses and offering three Discipline 1 and one Discipline 2 papers each in the third and fourth semesters, and four Discipline 1 papers in the fifth and sixth semesters. “This will enable students to complete their UG programme with an honours degree in three years.” 

DUSU president Aman Awana proposed that since BTech programme is popular, the fourth year should be retained and they should be eligible for a BTech degree. However, those who want to exit in three years should be allowed to do so with a BSc honours.