During a three-hour meeting with principals of the 77 colleges affiliated with Delhi University (DU) on April 4, vice chancellor Dr. Dinesh Singh announced the university’s decision to abolish the pre-admission forms (physical and online) system for undergraduate courses and modify DU’s admission calendar. The decision notified on April 19 will affect 61 affiliated colleges and 63 study programmes. Taken barely two months before the admission season kicks off, the announcement has drawn cautious applause from parents of prospective applicants.
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In 2007, DU revised its admission process with introduction of the common pre-admission forms, commonly referred to as the OMR system. College and university applicants had to buy, fill up and submit these forms to DU on specified dates. The information provided by applicants on OMR forms was collated and forwarded to colleges for admission purposes. Colleges were expected to determine and declare the cut-off percentages for different courses on the basis of this data, followed by a list of students they were prepared to admit. However, during the past two years some colleges had also begun issuing parallel admission forms bypassing the centralised system. Consequently, applicants and their parents had to run around buying, filling and submitting multiple forms in sweltering Delhi summers.
Comments Prof. J.M. Khurana, dean of students’ welfare at DU: “Under the 2007 centralised system, local and outstation students had to complete university and college pre-admission forms. Based on these forms, we collected data about preferred courses and colleges and sent it to colleges on compact discs. This became an exercise in futility after colleges started declaring their own cut-offs with complete disregard to this database. This dual system also left out some students, who were eligible but were not judicious in their choice of colleges/courses. Moreover the process was cumbersome for outstation students who had to make several trips to Delhi to collect and submit the pre-admission forms and check cut-offs and other lists to ascertain colleges which had shortlisted them.”
Now under the new process, colleges will determine and notify the cut-offs for all study programmes based on the experience of the previous year and class XII board results. All students whose exam scores meet or exceed the cut-off percentage can directly approach the colleges of their choice and claim admission over four days (as opposed to three days permitted earlier), by filling up the college admission and university enrolment forms on site.
According to Dr. Gurpreet Singh Tuteja, deputy dean of students’ welfare at DU, the new system cuts down paperwork and simplifies admission into affiliated colleges. “Most colleges were not making much use of the centralised admission data. Instead they relied on the previous year’s experience while declaring cut-off percentages. So DU is reducing unnecessary paperwork that colleges don’t use, and is cumbersome for us to maintain. Now under the new system applicants can check the cut-off percentages notified by affiliated colleges for different courses on the college/university website or in the media and approach them directly. This makes the process simple and straight-forward for everyone,” says Tuteja.
However some college managements believe that under the new system it will be difficult for them to determine cut-off percentages given the absence of the DU database. “We will deliberately keep the cut-off high. We cannot afford to admit more students than the number of seats available,” says Jaswinder Singh, principal of SGTB Khalsa College.
According to a DU spokesperson, since the university has given clear and comprehensive guidelines to colleges about the expansion of information-dissemination services this year, admissions will not only be smoother but quicker, eliminating delays in commencement of the new academic year which had become common in DU.
With the new academic year set to commence in July, the outcome of the much-trumpeted admission system reform will become known soon enough.
Payal Mahajan (Gurgaon)
Shining paradox
The health of millions of children is at risk because school managements are permitting canteen and tuck shop managements to sell junk food and addictive beverages.
A survey titled Rise in Consumption Pattern of Junk Food in the School, conducted by the Associated Chamber of Commerce (Assocham) Social Development Foundation (ASDF) across 25 private and elite schools in Delhi and the national capital region (NCR) covering 5,000 children, found that students exhibited marked preference for fast foods such as pizzas, burgers, chowmein, samosas, and pasta — all of which are loaded with fats, salt and sugar, and could cause lifestyle diseases.
“Fifty-six percent of urban children spend Rs.800-1,000 per month in school canteens, which overwhelmingly sell junk food. About 80 percent of parents like their children to carry home-cooked food to school on all six days, though 39 percent of them also give Rs.20-40 to their children to buy canteen food. Also, around 56 percent of children spend Rs.50 every day in canteens, with burgers and noodles selling the most,” states the survey which calls for immediate interventions to remedy the situation.
According to the ASDF survey, half the children quizzed said they eat eggs, pulses, and nuts only once a week. Most of them admitted to feeling exhausted by the end of each day and could run or jog for only 10 minutes at a stretch. The survey highlights medical studies conducted over the past decade which have found that 10-20 percent of school-going teenagers in urban India are obese, mainly because of junk food consumption. It also suggests that consumption of junk food alters brain activity in a manner similar to addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
“There’s urgent need to improve children’s nutrition by setting health standards for snacks and beverages sold in schools. Not just parents but school managements must also insist upon canteens providing healthy snacks instead of junk food,” says Dr. B.K. Rao, chairman of the Assocham health committee and also chairman, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. “Issues such as the need for school canteen guidelines and impact of advertising on children’s eating habits must be debated. Also, parents need to remember that children consume 30 percent of their daily kilojoules at school, so they should carefully monitor what is put into their lunch boxes and what they purchase in school canteens,” he adds.
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Gradually — perhaps too gradually — awareness about the ill-effects of salt, sugar and spices-laden junk food is spreading. For instance, the Delhi Public School (DPS), Mathura Road manage-ment has proscribed fast/junk food on its campus “We are a completely junk food-free school and don’t allow sale of any of these foods on our premises,” says Mohammad Iqrar Hussain, principal.
“Since packaged foods and drinks offer larger profits, school managements don’t protest sale of junk food. As a possible solution, we need to create awareness among parents and students about the benefits of healthy food,” suggests Dr. A. Laxmaiah, deputy director of the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad.
Delhi’s directorate of education periodically issues pro forma notices to school managements to stop serving junk foods and replace them with healthier food options. But since these are mere recommendations, they tend to be ignored. This situation has prompted Delhi-based NGO Uday Foundation to file a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Delhi high court seeking a ban on the sale of junk food and carbonated drinks in schools and within a 500-metre radius thereof, offering the prospect of some progress in the drive against the spread-ing junk foods-addiction epidemic.
To the many paradoxes of contem-porary shining India, add one more. While an estimated 120 million children in government primaries countrywide suffer malnutrition despite the world’s largest mid-day meal programme, urban middle class India is confronted with the spectre of spreading child obesity and related health problems.
Autar Nehru (Delhi)