Minister of state for human resource development Shashi Tharoor disapproved the high cut-offs for admission during his visit to Delhi University on Monday.
“I am not a fan of cut-offs. Selections are done in a much more uni-dimensional basis and the result has pretty much damaged the spirit of colleges,” Mr Tharoor said.
“Hands of the colleges and universities are tied by the court rulings in these matters. Students should not get afraid of the high first cut-off list as 95 per cent of the colleges take out second, third, fourth cut-offs,” the minister said.
Mr Tharoor was speaking on the sidelines of a Vidyarthi Panchayat, organised at Delhi University by National Students’ Union Of India and Delhi University Students Union for students to raise their grievances.
Recalling his days as a student of St Stephen’s College, Mr Tharoor said that students during those days were selected on their “all-round quality” and marks were not much of the criteria then.
“Most of the outstanding students in my college were those who had got third division in high school. But they were picked because they were most outstanding musicians, writers, sportspersons and it were these all rounded qualities the colleges were looking for,” he said.
The minister said that several bills on education reforms were pending in Parliament. One of the bills is regarding the setting up of 14 new universities for research and innovation.
The event was also attended by DU vice-chancellor Dinesh Singh.