New Delhi: The standoff between the UGC and Delhi University (DU) over the four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) continued yesterday with most of the university’s colleges deferring admissions, leading to confusion among lakhs of aspirants just a day before the admission process was to begin.
Even as the University Grants Commission (UGC), a statutory body of the government to coordinate and maintain the standards of university education in India, ordered the DU to scrap the FYUP “without fail” by Monday, the university was tight-lipped over the issue.
Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani met UGC officials to discuss the situation.
With no clarity emerging about the status of the course, S K Garg, President of the DU Principals Association, said: “Since there is a conflict between the two sets of guidelines, the admission process is unclear. “We defer the admissions to Delhi University till the competent authority issues unambiguous guidelines,” Garg told reporters.
Ram Lal Anand College Principal Vijay K. Sharma told IANS that the admissions have been “deferred till a final decision is taken by either body”.
He said the decision to temporary defer the admission process was taken by the association, which has 61 college principals as its members, due to “lack of clarity and conflicting guidelines”.
“Of the 61 members, 36 were present at the meeting where the decision was taken,” Sharma said.
The admission process was to begin Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the UGC, which met to chalk out a plan pertaining to the migration of the current students back to the three-year programme, stuck to its stand of restoring the three-year programme.
The commission had on Saturday constituted a standing committee headed by UGC Vice-Chairman H Devaraj, with representatives from the academic and executive councils of DU, Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA), Delhi University Students Union (DUSU), and college principals and teachers, to advise the university on the changeover.
The commission Monday also issued a public notice against the FYUP in all leading newspapers for parents and students.
“After taking into consideration the larger interests of the students, they are hereby informed that they shall seek admission in a college of the University of Delhi only to the three-year under-graduate programmes, which were prevalent prior to the introduction of the FYUP and shall pay fees only for the three-year programme,” read the UGC public notice.
IANS
