Why Are Thousands Of Undergraduate Seats Lying Vacant At DU?

There are undergraduate seats lying vacant in Delhi University not just in hundreds but thousands.

The experts believe it is the university's new undergraduate admission regime, which forces applicants to spell out course and college preferences before the CUET results are out. 

The new system, they believe is leaving thousands of seats vacant.

According to report in Telegraph, the vacancies at DU are still abound even after four rounds of counselling.

The report quoting Manoj Sinha, principal of DU-affiliated Aryabhatta College, suggested that “the university allow its colleges to fill these seats by sidestepping the rigid Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS).”

“The colleges should not be bound by restrictions such as the requirement that the student should have applied beforehand for the college and the course,” Sinha was quoted in the report as having said.

He added: “Vacant seats serve no purpose. It’s in the interest of the nation that they be filled.”

DU is India’s largest university. The varsity attracts students from across the country.

DU brought in the CSAS last year, following which it saw nearly 5,000 undergraduate seats go vacant.

“Many faculty members blame the CSAS, which forces applicants to state their preferences before they have a chance to learn their CUET scores, and restricts their freedom to change the choices after the CUET results are out and the situation regarding the availability of seats becomes clearer,” it said.

Earlier, individual DU colleges set their own cut-offs for each subject, admitting students on the basis of their Class XII marks. 

This would provide the students a complete picture about which courses they might be able to enrol in and at which college. 

By this system, after admission, they could still change their college and course.

However. under the newly introduced CSAS, each student has to mention a hierarchy of subject-cum-college preferences at the outset, and the system then allots her a particular course at a particular college based on her CUET scores and her stated preferences.

“Even if a student has not applied for certain courses or colleges, the seats should remain open for her,” the report quoted Sinha as having 
Sinha also expressed dismay about 22,000 students scoring 100 percentile in the CUET. 

“One of the reasons the university moved away from board-results-based admissions to the CUET had been the 100 per cent subject cut-offs the colleges were being forced to set thanks to the generous marking by some higher secondary boards,” the report said.