Students' groups protest 'discriminatory' high cut-offs

new delhi: Students' groups on Monday staged protests against the Delhi University (DU) administration over the high cut-offs announced for undergraduate admissions this academic session.

The protests were held by the Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) and the Students' Federation of India (SFI). They alleged that high cut-offs favour students of big private schools and demanded more transparency in the admissions process.

DU on Saturday announced its first cut-off list for undergraduate admission with Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College for Women pegging the score at 100 per cent for three Honours courses. The 100 per cent cut-off for undergraduate admissions in DU comes after a gap of five years.

Activists of the KYS burnt an effigy of the cut-off list to highlight its "discriminatory nature" and demanded that it be done away with immediately, the students' group said in a statement.

"This cut-off that is decided on the basis of marks scored by students of big private schools is nothing but a policy of ensuring that the most marginalised student does not have any access to quality higher education. This ensures that students who bear the brunt of substandard public-funded school education are turned away from public-funded universities,"

they said.

KYS activists were detained by police during the protest. Twenty activists of the KYS were protesting at the Arts Faculty, North Campus.

Meanwhile, the SFI submitted a memorandum to the Vice-Chancellor "regarding the unfair and unjustifiably high cut-offs for undergraduate admissions," it said in a statement. The memorandum was submitted by SFI Delhi President Sumit Kataria and said. "We strongly demand a transparent admissions process and we stand firmly against such exclusionary methods that only favour the high society," it added.