Admission forms and limited seats

Statistics can be deceptive at times. Delhi University has sold over 13 lakh admission forms this year, almost 56,000 more than last year. However, half the city's students won't make it even to the worst college in town.

Delhi University has a limited number of seats all right. But even lesser, in comparison, are the number of students who have the right scores to get into one of the regular colleges. By Wednesday evening, the University had put the final tally of forms at 13,16,500. Of course, as in the past, this year too, Open Universities will act as the lifeline of those left out.

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Around this time next week, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) would be settling down to the ways of its new Vice-Chancellor, Prof. H.P.Dixit.

When the present Vice-Chancellor of the Madhya Pradesh (Bhoj) Open University takes over as the head of the country's premier distance education centre, he will be putting to rest more than just wild rumours that have been circulating for some time now.

The University had been abuzz with talks of the centre getting a Vice-Chancellor from a regular college background, instead of the customary open school one. But the smiles seems to be back on the faces of professors, ever since it was announced that Prof. H.P.Dixit would be taking over.

The decision to continue with someone familiar with the working of the Open University system has been a conscious one. As a University official put it: `` It has always been a matter of an insider vs outsider''. And prof Dixit, perhaps, perfectly fits that bill of an insider as he has served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor of IGNOU between 1991 and 1994.

President of the Association of Indian Universities, Prof. Dixit is also a member of the National Board for Higher Mathematics and Department of Atomic Energy. With a number of events and launches in the offing, it will be action time at IGNOU when Prof. Dixit takes over early next week.

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A committee under the chairmanship of the Principal Secretary for Training and Technical Education has been constituted by the Delhi Government to decide the criteria for determining whether an educational institution is a minority one.

The decision comes in the wake of the Delhi Government receiving requests for grant of minority status to institutes affiliated with Guru Gobind Singh University for running degree level courses of higher education.

The committee will also lay down detailed guidelines for grant of minority status and evaluate proposals received by the Government from institutions affiliated with the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University claiming minority status. The committee is expected to submit its recommendations in the next 15 days.

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To help and safeguard disabled students seeking admission in Delhi University from any kind of harassment, the Society for Environmental Awareness, Rehabilitation of Child and Handicapped (SEARCH) today launched a helpline service and an assistance booth for counselling of physically challenged.

The helpline service will be available for a fortnight from June 20. Those facing any kind of problem in securing admissions can ask for help by calling at 6182629 between 5 p,m. and 7 p.m. on weekdays or e-mail to searchindia2000@yahoo.com. Students can also seek help in person from a week-long assistance booth to be set up outside Ramjas College from June 25.

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Crisp dollar notes and gleaming new cars. That is, perhaps, the Information Technology dream that most youngsters wake up to these days. But even those who are not really enthusiastic about a career in IT should now, perhaps, take a better look at the computer centre near their house to know if it will be `quality' education after all for their near and dear ones.

With computer institutes mushrooming in every nook and corner, a career in IT is no longer out of reach. Although still a money- spinning profession, the road to the treasure seems to be a sly one. The recent Zap Infotech case is a good enough example. Hundreds of students were cheated to the tune of over Rs 250 crores by the Mithani brothers, owners of Zap and Wintech chain of software education computer centres.

At least 150 students were cheated in Delhi alone. And each of these students had paid over Rs 18,000 for the course. The institute had even managed to fool some leading institutes such as Aptech and NIIT.

With the promise of jobs acting as a bait, students should investigate well before enrolling themselves in any computer institutes. Instead of relying on glorifying ads that come out, students should check past records, placements and the infrastructure facilities of the institute.

Lakshmi Balakrishnan

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