DU panel suggests rejigging UG course combos to fill up vacant seats

NEW DELHI: With undergraduate admissions just weeks away, Delhi University is looking to plug a recurring problem — thousands of vacant seats — by restructuring course combinations, particularly in BA programmes, based on student demand trends observed over the past few years.

The move comes as DU prepares to begin admissions for the 2026-27 academic session, likely in the third week of May, following the declaration of CUET results.

Facing consistent vacancies since 2022, when admissions were centralised through CUET, the university recently constituted a committee to examine how courses — especially in off-campus colleges — could be realigned to improve seat-fill rates. The panel has now recommended a series of changes aimed at making programmes more flexible and aligned with student preferences.

Among its key suggestions: Colleges should reassess BA programme discipline combinations and merge low-demand subjects with more popular ones to improve uptake.

Languages such as Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Bengali and Telugu, which have faced persistent low enrolment even in on-campus departments/colleges, may be clubbed with another discipline within a single combination.

Vocational academic courses like office management and secretarial practices (OMSP) and AMSP may be replaced with ‘commerce’ in BA combinations and subjects such as food technology and HDFE may be brought under a broader ‘community science’ discipline.

No programme will be scrapped, but colleges can redistribute or expand seats within existing courses based on demand and capacity, according to the panel.

The recommendations will be placed before the Academic Council on April 15 for approval.

The DU committee included senior university officials such as the dean of colleges, registrar, dean (academics), dean (admissions), along with principals of colleges, including Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, Miranda House and Daulat Ram College, among others.

The exercise follows internal discussions held with multiple colleges this Jan, where institutes flagged persistent vacancies in several courses despite multiple rounds of admission.

Vacant seats have emerged as a structural concern for DU since CUET-based admissions began. Delays in entrance test results and the subsequent admission process often compress the academic calendar, prompting many students to secure seats in other universities, leaving DU with unfilled capacity — particularly in less sought-after courses and colleges. However, last year, even some high-demand courses in top colleges reported vacancies in later rounds.

In Dec, TOI had reported that DU was considering phasing out or restructuring low-demand undergraduate programmes after an internal review highlighted weak response trends compared with pre-CUET years. The university later clarified that no courses would be discontinued, but combinations could be reshuffled to minimise vacancies.

In the past four years, nearly 24,000 seats have gone vacant at Delhi University — around 5,000 in 2022, 7,000 in 2023, 3,000 in 2024, and about 9,000 last year — marking a loss not just for the university, but also for thousands of aspirants who missed the opportunity to study at DU, which attracts students from across the country.
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