Foreign language courses remain popular despite high cut-offs

Anticipating good marks from their Class XII CBSE exams, Delhi University aspirants will look to gain admission to coveted courses in the Commerce stream. Yet, there are students, who will apply for foreign languages courses, which many think is their ticket into the prestigious varsity.

However, it will be an uphill task as sources from the Department of Germanic and Romance Studies have hinted that cut-offs will cross 90 per cent this year.

After the CBSE agreed to adhere to the Delhi High Court's decision to continue with the marks moderation policy, it is expected that more students will pass the Class XII leading to skyrocketing cut-offs.

Officials of the Department claimed that every year the cut-offs cross the 90 per cent threshold. "The cut-offs for this Department have crossed 90 percent over the previous few years. We expect the same this year around. The cut-offs for French, German and Italian courses will be high," said Farida, an associate professor for French.

The Department offers six language courses, four of which are BA undergraduate courses (German, French, Italian and Spanish) while two are diploma courses (Romanian and Portuguese).

The officials claim that they have been "very conservative" with the cut-offs, as they cannot afford to take even one student over the maximum capacity of 39 seats per language course due to an infrastructure crunch.

"Our Department has been facing problems in terms of infrastructure, leading to a space crunch. The integrated teaching system followed by our Department means that every student is taken care of, and we cannot afford to take extra students," said Vijaya Venkatraman, an admission committee member.

This, however, does not mean that the students will be completely left out. Sources from the Department also said that despite high starting cut-offs, there have always been at least five lists. In some cases, the list has also stretched to a seventh cut-off.

Officials asked students not to be disheartened if they are accepted, as several foreign language courses will be offered in various colleges in North and South campus.

Many students often opt for German and French. However, the trend keeps changing every year. Officials said that Spanish has also become popular of late.

Apart from Indian students, foreign students too flock the Department seeking admission. An overwhelming majority of students are from China and South Korea.

As of Friday, over 80, 00 students have registered online for admissions to the varsity's various undergraduate courses.

"Out of 80,320 registrations, 64, 249 applicants have submitted their personal details," OSD Admissions Ashutosh Bhardwaj said in a release.