DU professors claim 'unfair advantage' of Kerala students in admissions

New Delhi: Admissions processes were temporarily halted on Monday at Delhi University as the admissions team met to decide whether there was an unfair advantage for Kerala State syllabus students. On Wednesday, the Indian Express had reported that 95% of the seats in three courses with 100% cutoffs were given to State Syllabus students from Kerala.

According to professors, the generous marking given to students in Class 12 is resulting in the discrepancy during admissions, which gives these students an advantage. The mark list issued by the Kerala State Board is based on average marks of six subjects, taking into account both Class 11 and 12. However, Delhi University only considers Class 12 marks, where the Kerala board marks more liberally.

This 'advantage' was pointed out by admissions teams in DU colleges where it was noted that Kerala students who scored less than 100% in Class 11 were getting into courses with high cutoffs because of their inflated Class 12 results. The students would not otherwise have gained admission if the full results were used, professors claimed.

However, the DU central admissions team concluded that there must be a universal method of calculating marks and that since other State boards also considered only Class 12 performance, the same principle should be applied to Kerala State students.