Although the Delhi University stated in the Delhi High Court on Wednesday, July 6 that St Stephen's College should uniformly follow the National Education Policy (NEP) 2022 which recommends holding the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admissions, students along with activists continue to protest demanding immediate scrapping of the interview criteria for admission into the college.
Minority institution St Stephen’s College had declared that it would, contrary to DU regulations, conduct admission based on interview marks (15% weightage) of the candidates apart from CUET scores (85% weightage). To oppose this, the Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) activists along with regular students sat on an indefinite sit-in protest last month, but it was forcibly ended by the Delhi Police in collusion with the DU administration. However, students continued to protest even yesterday, July 6 as they organised a hunger strike at the Arts Faculty in the North Campus of Delhi University.
While speaking about the process of conducting interviews for the admission process, the KYS, in a press release, stated that, “This is an elitist tradition as the only reason to conduct interviews is to select the most elite students for admission into the college. The criterion has been persistently used to deny the students from deprived backgrounds from gaining entry into the college, and thereby, maintain the elitism of granting admission and perpetuating the privilege of select clans and families.” They also said that this skewed admission policy of entrance exams at a public-funded university gives privilege to students who are from well-off backgrounds.
While condemning the college’s administration, they demanded that the decision to provide weightage to the interview should be immediately scrapped and the common admission process should be followed.
On July 6, the High Court bench deferred the matter to July 15. “The matter has been deferred by the Delhi High Court. Let’s see what decision they come up with. For the time being, we will continue our struggle and collect one lakh signatures which will be submitted to the Education Ministry,” said Bhim Kumar, member of KYS.
Additionally, the student organisation also demanded that 20% deprivation points should be ensured to the government school students in the admission process of DU, the number of seats should be increased and evening shift should be started in all regular mode colleges, so as to ensure formal-mode education to the hitherto deprived students.
