Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Eligibility for OBC Students Relaxed in Delhi University

Students of the other backward classes (OBC) category, seeking admission in Delhi University (DU) this year, have reason to cheer. The university is all set to slash eligibility criteria across all courses for candidates applying under the OBC category. The eligibility criteria for SC/ST candidates, however, will stay at 33%.

“For all those OBC candidates who are opting for Journalism, we have relaxed the eligibility criteria for them. While the eligibility criteria for general category students will be 60%, , the criteria for OBC students will be 54% and those for SC/ ST students will be 33% — which is the basic passing marks for Class 12 exams” said Tarjeet Sabharwal, convener of the Common Journalism Entrance Test (CJET 2012) admissions committee.

Colleges also claim that this is being done to give a fillip to OBC admissions, since several seats across numerous courses remained vacant last year.

“This is being done across the university in order to boost the student intake for the reserved category. Lower eligibility criteria will motivate many such students to actively come and apply for admissions,” added Sabharwal.

Last year, there had been a flat 10% reduction in the OBC criteria.

“This year it is going to be 10% less of the general category criteria. This means that if the cut off for general category is 60%, for OBC students it will be 10% of 60%, that is 60 minus 6, which is 54%,” said SK Garg, chairperson, DU’s high-powered committee.

Some professors, however, did not think that the relaxation in eligibility criteria would fill up the vacant seats in some of the humanities courses.

“This is not likely to boost OBC intake in some courses such as political science, history, mathematics or statistics,” said a professor at  Lady Shri Ram College.

“For a girls’ college, there are fewer OBC women applicants. Those who do apply want to study economics or b.com because they translate into jobs more easily. So seats in the other courses will anyway be left vacant despite the relaxation in the eligibility criteria,” the professor added.

Source: Shashwati Das, hindustantimes.com

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