ABVP staged a protest at Delhi University against the shortage of seats in one-year PG programmes, with the demonstration led by Aryan Mann.
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) staged a protest at Delhi University, drawing attention to the minuscule number of seats available for students seeking a postgraduate diploma after completing their fourth year. Their chief demand was that the total number of seats should be increased, as the current setup has “betrayed” the aspirations of the students.
DUSU President Aryan Maan, in a statement to IANS, said,
The university administration had announced that all students completing the fourth year, whether from honours or programme courses, would get an opportunity to take admission to the one-year course on the basis of merit. However, there are only limited seats for students who have completed the fourth year.”
Further highlighting the disparity between students opting for the conventional two-year route and those coming in straight after their fourth year, the ABVP chief stated,
Those who are willing to do masters for 2 years, they have more 4,000-5,000 seats; however, those who have completed their fourth year are only offered 1,000 seats.”
Another ABVP protestor, explaining the specific course at the centre of the protest and the demand being pursued to increase the total number of seats, said:
“The one course that has been increased in DU, thousands of students come from third and fourth year to enroll in that said course. However, the seats for MA are very low, so ABVP demands that the number of seats for the MA course be officially increased.”
The protest comes amid growing scrutiny of the one-year PG programme’s rollout, with the university’s official seat matrix listing roughly 1,068 seats spread across 45 programmes, a fraction of the number of students who stayed on for the additional fourth year. Notably, the intake for the one-year route is calculated as a percentage of each department’s pre-existing sanctioned strength rather than the actual number of fourth-year completers, a formula finalised only months after most students had already committed to the extra year.
Image credits: ABPlive Ground Report
Kaustubh Dwivedi
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