Despite several oppositions from the Delhi University (DU) administration and others — including representations by various students and faculty members, written notices from DU's Registrar and the Delhi High Court directing the college to withdraw its prospectus — St Stephen’s College, which is affiliated to DU, has refused to back down on its admission policy.
St Stephen’s College has been adamant about maintaining its admission policy which follows an 85:15 weightage for all candidates applying for undergraduate courses. The college has stated that it would give 85% weightage to the CUET score and 15% weightage would be carried by an interview that the college would conduct.
Staging an agitation once more on June 6, Monday, the members of Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) tried to urge the college to take down its policy.
Why don't they agree with St Stephen's
“The college is adamant that it will not go with the general admission policy, which is followed by the university. We wanted to take out a protest rally, starting from the college to the Arts Faculty, asking the college to withdraw this unfair policy,” said Harish Gautam, a member of KYS.
“A section of the students have also conversed with the university administration and submitted a memorandum to the Dean of Students Welfare regarding the matter,” he added.
“When we staged the first protest, we tried to talk to the college administration, but it denied hearing us out. The administration has never listened to the students. So this time, we didn’t approach it again and decided to directly converse with the university administration,” he said further. The memorandum that they have submitted is addressed to DU’s Vice-Chancellor, Yogesh Singh.
The issue had even reached the Delhi High Court and a couple of days ago, the court had asked the college to withdraw its prospectus which mentions this 85:15 admission criterion. However, the St Stephen’s College administration has cited from the beginning that since it is a minority institution, it possesses legal rights to form a separate admission policy, and has refused to change it. “Even after the court asked it to withdraw its prospectus, the college has done nothing till now. There is another hearing at the court on July 6,” informed Harish.
“The protest march started around 10:30 am today (June 6) and the students went to submit the memorandum at about 12 noon. Student members of KYS from other colleges like Hindu and Ramjas also took part with us. Some school students also joined us, but they left early,” he stated. He also said that KYS is the only organisation leading the protest in this matter.
What are the demands?
The organisation is organising a Twitter storm today evening, June 6, starting from 7 pm. And from June 7, the students are planning an indefinite sit-in protest at the North Campus.
According to a press release by KYS, they are not only demanding that the interview weightage in the admission policy be scrapped but they are also asking the college to give 20% deprivation points to government school students in the admission process.
Additionally, they are demanding the college to start evening classes for the students to help them get better opportunities, understand concepts and clear their doubts.
The college’s policy is being considered unfair because it has been alleged that it is elitist and only students from high-income English-medium schools would be preferred for the admission, depriving the government school students of seats, who would face difficulty in scoring good points in the interview.
“We conducted an informal survey after our RTI plea did not receive any replies from the college administration. According to our survey, most students who are pursuing classes in the formal education mode in the regular institutes are from English-medium backgrounds. The regular institutions are government-funded, but no government school student can avail admission to them. This is extremely ironical,” Harish states.
