Chaos and confusion marred the admission process in Delhi University (DU) on Monday with colleges having no clarity on parity of other education boards’ subjects with that of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Monday was the last day of admission under the first cut off list for all boards except Andhra Pradesh state board.

There were long queues outside the grievance redressal cell of the university. Stuti Vajpayee, an ISC student, had come to clarify why the college was deducting 2.5% marks from her aggregate while calculating best of four percentage. “In ISC board we study Accounts in Commerce stream. But the college is saying that it is not equivalent to Accountancy which is taught in the CBSE schools. It is deducting 2.5% marks from the aggregate of my best of four subjects,” she said.

Vajpayee, who had scored 97.75% marks in class 12, wanted to enrol in B Com at Kirori Mal College. The cut-off for the course is 97.5%. “If they deduct 2.5%, then I will not be eligible for admission in the course,” she said.

College officials however said they did not receive any clarification on the issue from the university.

Secretary of the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) Gerry Arathoon on Monday wrote to DU Registrar Tarun Das and Dean of Students’ Welfare Rajeev Gupta, requesting them to consider Accounts in parity with CBSE’s Accountancy. “The only difference is that of nomenclature. The course content and rigour is similar,” Arathoon said in the letter.

The CISCE has also issued a clarification over the confusion of core and elective subjects. “As per the ISC regulations, English is a core subject and all other subjects are elective.”

The clarification came after complaints that the DU is not considering some ISC subjects as elective. In DU, while calculating the percentage of best of four subjects, candidates have to include a language as core subject and three elective or academic subjects. Rasal Singh, member of DU academic council, explained, “The issue is faced by students who studied two languages and three other academic subjects in class 12. For instance, if they have studied English and Hindi, then both are considered as core languages. They can add only one in best of four subjects as a core subject.”

Similar complaints were reported by students from Uttar Pradesh state board. They alleged that Civics is not being considered equivalent to the CBSE’s Political Science. “The syllabus of Civics is almost same as that of Political Science. Just the names of the two subjects are different. I want to enrol in Political Science but there will be a deduction of 2.5% marks from my aggregate,” said Vijay Kumar, who had scored 89.5% marks and want to enrol in the course in Rajdhani College under the SC quota.

A member of admission committee said the content of these subjects are not similar with that of the CBSE. “These subjects cannot be considered the same,” the member said.

Meanwhile, back at the grievance cell, a Rajasthan board student said a North Campus college was deducting 2.5% marks from her aggregate because she had studied “Hindi Sahitya” and not “Hindi”. “It seems that the university serves only CBSE students,” she said.

An official at the grievance cell said that they have directed the college to admit the student. “We have considered language subjects having heavy literature as an elective subject. We have cleared her admission,” the official said.

First Published: Jul 02, 2019 09:21 IST