AAP government bats for admission quota in Delhi University

There are legal problems, national implications in meeting the Delhi govt's demand of reservation

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in this city has revived an age-old demand, asking for reserving 85 per cent of seats for local students in Delhi University by passing a resolution in the legislative assembly.

The city government believes students from the national capital should be given reservation in at least the 28 colleges, which are either fully or partially funded by it. 

Around 250,000 students from Delhi compete for around 57,000 undergraduate seats in the 110 Delhi University-affiliated colleges every year. However, the competition is so tough that Delhi students are only able to qualify for half the seats. The rest is filled by students from different states. 

This has led to both the AAP and the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) asking for reservation for students graduating from schools in the capital.

But experts and officials in the Union ministry of human resource development (MHRD) say this is easier said than done.

“As far as I know, it is not possible until the central government passes an amendment to the Delhi University Act of 1922 and to the statutes that emanate from the Act,” said Dinesh Singh, former vice-chancellor of Delhi University. Though the AAP government has passed another resolution exhorting the BJP-led central government to do this, the MHRD is unlikely to bring any Bill in this regard.

For various reasons. One would be that the BJP government at the Centre would not want its bête noire, AAP, to derive political mileage from the reservation issue and at the same time upset youth from different states seeking admission in Delhi University a year before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The admission process for the current academic year, 2017-18, is underway and no change can be introduced before 2018. 

The amendment is also not going to cut much ice with the various regional parties, as students from various states flock to Delhi University for quality education, recognition of their degree and better job prospects.

“Introducing the quota in Delhi University is likely to increase regionalism. Imagine a situation where other states start raising similar demands for other central universities housed in their respective states,” says a senior MHRD official. “It would be better if the matter is resolved between the Delhi government and the executive council of Delhi University.”

Some say there could be a middle ground. MHRD, for instance, could introduce a common entrance examination for admission in all the 47 central universities, provided states don’t ask for a regional quota. 

“This would also take care of the inflation of marks issue in various school boards. Only those students who qualify the entrance exam would be admitted into central universities,” says another official in MHRD.

The marks moderation policy has already run into trouble, with parents petitioning the Delhi High Court to get the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) scrap its policy in this regard from the next academic year. 

The officials predict the same problem is likely to arise in the future, as many states are reluctant to abolish their marks moderation policy. 

However, conducting a common entrance exam for all central universities would be difficult, as many affiliated colleges have their own admission policies and procedures. “In such a scenario, it would be best if the central government amends the Delhi University Act to a limited extent, allowing universities in Delhi to give affiliation to colleges, as was done in the case of the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in 1998,” the official said.

Sub-section 2 of Section 5 of the Delhi University Act prohibits any university, except Delhi University and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, to have affiliated colleges. 

If such an amendment is passed, institutions such as Ambedkar University in Delhi could give affiliation to more colleges and meet the growing demand for quality education from students. Many say some of the three-year degree courses in Ambedkar University, which is under the Delhi government, are better than those offered by Delhi University.  

With the assembly resolution, the AAP-led Delhi government has now left the ball in the court of the central government.