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It is once again that time of the year when the university comes to life with students just out of school, trying to pursue the course they had been dreaming about for long. As the colleges, faced with the massive rush of students for the popular courses, step up the cut-off percentage of marks for admission, there is widespread frustration. Despite promises, the University authorities have not successful in offering more seats to meet the demand. Hurdles in the way have include lack of funds, lack of accommodation, shortage of teachers, etc. The result is that even those who had managed around 70 per cent in the school finals find they are denied admission to prestigious colleges in the North or South campus.

Once the colleges announce the cut off lists for the different courses and stops accepting forms, the agonising wait for the names to appear on the college notice boards begins. In fact, the students’ stress starts from the time they have to stand in serpentine queues at the crowded counters to submit their forms. It is a common scene to find tense students bustling around, forms in hand, adding up their marks and hoping to somehow meet the cut-off line. Despite the apparent chaos on the surface, one must say the college authorities surprisingly manage to accomplish the mission within the stipulated time.

Delhi University seems to be learning from past mistakes. Last year had seen the University go the Internet way with much fanfare before finally ending up with a dud show when the overloaded website server crashed.While the creamy layer consisting of those with 85 to 90 per cent can hope to find their names on all the boards, those in the 75-plus bracket run from one college to another hoping to get admission in some course, though not of their choice. For the serious students, Economics is the first choice this year. Science courses during the years have lost their charm, whereas a decade ago, the brightest boys and girls used to opt for B.Sc (Hons) courses. Economics emerged at the top of the list following the reforms that facilitated the entry of MNCs and foreign banks offering plum jobs and fat pay packets.

"Though there were cases of students with lesser marks managing admission in some colleges last year, with the number of seats available being limited, students with lesser marks are not likely to get admission in the course and college of their choice," according to Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Prof. Deepak Nayyar.

The university has around 45,000 seats in all. While 5,000 of these are available in the professional courses, a little over 40,000 seats will be available in the regular stream. Last year had seen 111,689 students take admission in various streams of Delhi University

For many girls, English (Hons.) still remains the favourite, the reason being that it is less of a strain and does not need regular attendance for keeping up with the course material. The course is ideal for enjoying college life to the full, riding on the pillion of jazzy mobikes, watching the latest Hollywood blockbusters in the cool PVR complexes or making it to the hottest discos to dance to ear-splitting music.

For the boys in the top slots, it is a rough grind. Many of them aspire to join the IITs, which could open the gateway to a successful career launch, rather than the graduation courses in the campus colleges.

Meanwhile, to ease the rush for some specific courses, two new courses are in the offing for students at Delhi University this year at the undergraduate level. Vice-Chancellor Deepak Nayyar has announced the courses—B.Sc. (Gen.) course in Computer Science being offered by Dayal Singh College and B.A. (Hons.) in German, French, Hispanic and Italian Studies—would be available as full-time courses in the non-formal stream.

Delhi University is also planning to soon introduce a B.E. in Information Technology, which will be at par with the engineering courses offered by Delhi College of Engineering. The four-year course, to be introduced during the present academic year, is awaiting approval of the Academic Council.

Delhi University just missed adding another feather to its cap when its idea of helping Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) students during admissions did not go as expected. For the first time, DU had conducted an orientation programme for SC and ST candidates this year. Students registering for the programme were to be given admission forms.

The University had also announced that they need not produce caste certificates at the time of purchasing the forms, unlike in previous years. However, not many students turned up for the orientation programme. As a result, the varsity had to open special counters to provide forms to the SC and ST students. In spite of this, students were found standing in long queues for several hours because even the general category students lined up for the forms at the special counters.

‘‘But once they find that the forms are of no use to them, they just throw them in the campus. Even the SC and ST candidates are taking more forms than they need. This has created a temporary shortage of forms in the centres. In order to run a system smoothly, people need to have civic sense too,’’ pointed out Dean, Student’s Welfare, Dr. Hema Raghavan.

With all the centres asking for more forms, Dr. Raghavan has asked them to keep an eye on the students who come twice to get the forms. The University’s plan of accepting forms online is falling flat with students outsmarting the DU authorities by producing photostat copies of the admission forms in the colleges.

The forms which are downloaded from the Net do not have any registration numbers and are in black and white, so it becomes easy for the students to get them copied. ‘‘A photostat copy costs a mere 60 paisa while a printout would cost them around Rs. 5 per copy. So the smarter ones prefer this to downloading a dozen forms,’’ explained one of the employees at the Hindu College. ‘‘We thought that if we have registration numbers, two students would not be able be download the form simultaneously. But now it seems, we were wrong,’’ confessed Dr. Hema Raghavan. Dr. Raghavan has requested all the colleges to accept the downloaded forms but reject the ones that have poor printing quality.

Then there is the issue of hiking fees for college education. When Prof. Deepak Nayyar remarked, casually enough recently, that college students were getting too comfortable about spending more on coffee from Barista than on their fees, he raked up a dormant issue which has been worrying many in the academic fraternity for long. Restructuring of fees at the University level is an issue that has sparked off a debate every time it has been raised, and yet little has changed in the system. "I could meet my entire expenses with Rs. 125 when I was studying at Delhi University, and this included spending on entertainment. Today, students are ready to spend on their entertainment but not on studies,’’ Prof. Nayyar summed up. Subsidising education may be important but, as many academics point out, a good majority of students who come to Delhi University can afford to pay a little more for higher education. The idea is to make sure that they take their studies seriously enough. "They don’t seem to value it’’ is the general refrain. And while the reasons for not raising the fees for decades now varies from lack of consensus within the University’s Academic Council to lack of political will, students continue to pay a measly Rs. 15 as tuition fees, which is something that has been welcome news for not just those parents who cannot afford to spend lavishly on their ward’s education but also those who spend nothing less than Rs. 24,000 a year for educating their children at public schools.

Hardliners, however, insist that increasing fees is not really the answer. "What about those who cannot afford to pay the fees. So many students who come to Delhi University from outside have to spend a lot on just staying here. The idea should be to educate as many as possible by making it affordable,’’ argues a Delhi University professor.