May 11: Clearing the air on the introduction of semester system in the Delhi University with the teaching community strongly resisting the move, the vice-chancellor Deepak Pental said on Tuesday that it is not mandatory for all colleges to implement the system this year.
“The semester system introduction will be partial this year. It is a large university and it requires a lot of collective work. We already have tempers high on the campus,” Prof. Pental said while talking to the reporters in a press conference to announce the admission schedule.
“We have to look at the issue of semester system from the perspective of the welfare of students. We will have to implement it anyhow by 2011, as it is mandated by the UGC and is a government directive,” he said.
The Executive Council and Academic Council have cleared the semester system proposal, but a group of teachers is against it. “We have put a lot of efforts and we will encourage colleges but a diktat cannot be issued,” the vice-chancellor said.
Meanwhile, the admission process has been preponed this year and will begin from May 28. The university has 54,000 seats this year, an addition of 5,000 seats in compliance with the OBC quota implementation. The university started the OBC quota implementation in 2006-07 and it will be completed this year. The admission forms will be available at 16 centres from May 28 to June 11, while last year the period was June 1 to 15.
The university has introduced “web chat” this year, under which students can interact with experts online to get their queries solved.