New Delhi

A faux pas at DU

Lakshmi B. Ghosh

NEW DELHI: These are entrance examinations that are happening only on Delhi University's official website, supposed to be the best place to get the right information. But for students who are going purely by the University's web details, a crosscheck with the colleges will perhaps do a lot of good.

While the University website claims that Ramjas College will have an entrance test for Economics (Honours) and Lady Shri Ram College for B.Com (Honours), the colleges actually have no such plans. While the University's faux pas seems to have been caused by lack of co-ordination and a change of mind by the institutes concerned at the last minute, the colleges themselves were caught off-guard when told about the information posted on the University website.

Incidentally, after being the only college to take an entrance test for Economics (Honours), Ramjas College has this year decided to do away with the practice.

"The admission committee of the department met and decided that there was no need for the test. Since the decision was unanimous, we had to obviously cancel the entrance. We will, however, be holding the entrance for English (Honours)," said Ramjas College Principal Rajender Prasad.

And while Ramjas decided to drop the entrance, Lady Shri Ram after much deliberation too thought it best not to have an entrance for B.Com (Honours) and has opted for interviews. Delhi University officials, however, said the information on the website was based on the inputs given by the colleges themselves.

"We were told by the colleges that they were having the entrance. But since they are all autonomous in their working, they probably changed the decision later. In that case, it is the college's responsibility to convey the decision to us. In any case, we will rectify the mistake by tomorrow," said Deputy Dean of Students Welfare Divya Tiwari.

But then as students get ready to face the heat in Delhi University this admission season, entrance examinations to some of the popular courses are getting tougher, with most colleges going for two shifts of tests to accommodate more students.

One of the first subjects to have an entrance, English (Honours) continues to rule the charts in the University with as many as 16 colleges as of now holding an entrance for the subject. This includes Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Maharaja Agrasen College, Bharti College, Gargi College, Daulat Ram, Hindu College, Janki Devi College, Jesus & Mary College, Kamla Nehru College, Lady Shri Ram College, Laxmi Bai College, Miranda House, Rajdhani College, Ramjas College, Ram Lal Anand College, Satyawati College (Morning), Shyama Prasad Mukherjee College, Swami Shraddhanand College and Zakir Hussain College (Morning).

Some of the other subjects that have a entrance test include B.A.(Honours) Social Work at the Aditi College and B.R. Ambedkar College, Mass Communications in Indraprastha College.

Yet another popular course that requires an entrance is B.A.(Honours) Journalism which is available in Maharaja Agrasen College, Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Kalindi College, Kamla Nehru College and Lady Shri Ram College.

Then there is also an entrance for Hindi Journalism at Aditi College and B.R. Ambedkar College.

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