DU issues guidelines on inclusion of state board subjects in cut-offs - sparks a row

New Delhi: With Delhi University colleges witnessing a large number of admissions of students from the Kerala state board, the university has issued guidelines on inclusion of subjects from other state boards equivalent to ones taught under the Central Board of Secondary Education in the calculation of cut-off marks.

There is an equivalence committee which decides which subjects from state boards would be similar to CBSE subjects and their inclusion while calculating the cut-off score — the average of best-of-four marks.

"If they (committee) say that a subject is not equivalent, it cannot be included in Best of Four," said Rajeev Gupta, Chairman, Admissions at the university.

A meeting was held on Tuesday with colleges and a list was shared with them.

Citing an example, Gupta said that CBSE has started Applied Mathematics as a subject to help students who are not well-versed with Mathematics, which means it is easier than Mathematics.

"CBSE has also written that students of Applied Mathematics will not be eligible for Physics (Honours), Chemistry (Honours) and Mathematics (Honours). The Equivalence Committee considered it and found that the Applied Mathematics cannot be considered for Economics (Honours) since the course requires a difficult level of Mathematics but it can be considered for B.Com(Honours)," he said.

The committee considers factors like theory and practical component, syllabus, etc. while deciding on the equivalence, Gupta said.

However, the Bihar School Education Board has 50-mark Hindi and English papers, in addition to 100-mark papers of both the subjects. The committee has stated that the 50-mark papers will not be considered for calculation of best-of-four average for applying to DU colleges.

It has come to light that certain colleges are rejecting applications without stating any substantial reason or withholding applications arbitrarily stating "clarifications to be sought from the university".

In a related development, the Students'' Federation of India demanded that CBSE and its evaluation should not be the deciding factor in admissions.

It also alleged that a faculty member of the university had "antagonised the Kerala board for the commendable work of its students and had using terms such as "MarksJihad".