This academic year, college may not be quite fun for new undergraduate students vying for admissions into the capital’s Delhi University (DU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Both of these are planning to conduct weekend classes and shorten winter breaks to adjust the academic calendar for the academic year 2024-25. This follows the delay in the announcement of the CUET UG results, which will in turn delay the academic year of these universities.
DU depends entirely on CUET for admissions to undergraduate courses and JNU accepts the score for admission into some programmes and conducts its entrance test for others.
Meanwhile, there has been no update on the release of results by the authorities. The CUET UG result which was originally scheduled to release on June 30, now faces a delay of over two weeks.
According to a senior JNU official, the delay in result declaration will jeopardise the university's capacity to provide a single academic schedule for all student batches. The institution may need to schedule more Saturday classes and maybe reduce the winter break to make up for lost time and finish the syllabus, PTI reported.
DU may also follow the same path, with the academic calendar extending for first-year students beyond schedule.
“These tactics are ruining the university experience for us. I was so excited to go to college but not anymore,” said Shivani Singh, a CUET UG aspirant who plans to get into DU. Aiming for Kirori Mal College, Singh said that there should be a uniform academic calendar for everyone.
“When the DU academic calendar was disrupted for three years because of the pandemic, the University said last year that they would bring uniformity again. However, that is not the case this year as well,” Singh said.
“There are talks of shortening winter break as well but why should that happen? We took the exam on time and did everything correctly but now we will have to face unnecessary pressure during our first semester,” Singh added.
Another aspirant, Parul Garg mentioned that she wanted to pursue a BA (Hons) in German from JNU but is now reconsidering her choice. “The reason I chose to pursue this degree is so that I could improve my skills on weekends, giving me an advantage in the future. However, now with weekend classes, I don’t know if I should continue with JNU. It is also completely unfair for the University to compensate for the syllabus by scheduling classes over the weekend and shortening winter breaks. College is so much more than just attending classes,” she said.
“There are so many clubs and societies in DU which I want to attend but if the college hurries to complete the syllabus then we won’t get to participate as much. Delay in starting the academic year can also mean that we will get a reduced semester break which is again unfair. There should not be any further delay in announcing CUET results. We have already suffered enough,” said Aryan Prakash, who wishes to pursue an honours in Economics from DU.
Earlier this week, DU also released its second-year academic calendar, which included a four-day winter break. The university has not explained this adjustment.
