Leader of the Opposition V. K. Malhotra expressed concern saying some students were worried that DCE, which so far came under Delhi University, would lose its status now by moving out of the purview of a Central university and come under a State university. He also wondered if the new university would be a deemed university. Ms. Dikshit said Delhi Technological University would be a full university. "Also DCE despite being one of the best four colleges could not grow under Delhi University but now the path has been paved for its expansion as the intake of students would also go up in the new campus," she added.

"The National Knowledge Commission in its recommendations to the nation, which we in Delhi have taken up for implementation in our blueprint for action, has emphasised for synergy between education and research. This calls for revitalisation of our technical education institutions. Keeping this in view, it has been decided to upgrade Delhi College of Engineering into a State University under the name of Delhi Technological University."

The House was also informed that new courses would be offered from this academic year 2009-10 starting in August, adding 458 new seats -- 240 new seats in the B.Tech. programme, 168 new post-graduate seats in the M.Tech. programmes and 50 new Ph.D. and teaching-cum-research fellowships.

R P Mullick, president, FoS, said, ``Since it's raining and the weather is much better now, we have decided to resume classes IX to XII from Thursday. All the 300 schools under FoS will open early now.'' Schools like DPS, Amity International, Ryan International, Springdales will still reopen on July 8.

Vinay Kumar, principal, DPS Vasant Kunj, said that changing the dates now will create confusion. ``We will open again on July 8 only. There is no point changing the dates now. We will go with the government order,'' said Kumar.

Bharti Sharma, principal, Amity International, Saket, agreed. She said, ``Weather is such an unpredictable thing. Once we delayed the reopening, many parents might also have changed their vacation schedules. Now calling the students before July 8 will also upset their plans.'' She added, ``It was just a matter of three extra holidays for us. That can be adjusted.''

Likely to be called "Yuva" schools, these would be opened under the aegis of a society and would be professionally run with the help of known academicians.

According to sources, a meeting of the State Education Department was convened recently in which modalities for opening these schools were discussed. These schools would target the upper strata of society with their high fee structure and better facilities.

It is proposed that three such schools would be opened in Delhi in the first phase of the project. While one is proposed to come up on Rajpur Road, the others would be located in Laxmibai Nagar and Preet Vihar.

The project is all set to take off and only needs a Cabinet approval to take shape. According to sources, the buildings for all these three schools already exist and would only require some modifications and upgrading through a one-time government funding. Thereafter these schools would run as self-supporting entities and hopefully even make profits that would be ploughed back for opening more such schools across Delhi.

The proposed schools would be equipped with modern facilities like swimming pools but would not be air-conditioned. The society that would be constituted to run these schools would be drawn from eminent personalities and would be fully responsible for appointing the Principal and the teachers as also for the day-to-day functioning of these schools.

While the Chief Minister and the Education Minister would directly supervise the schools' functioning, it would be ensured that political interference is minimal.

The three schools to be taken up in the first phase are expected to start admissions from next year as their buildings are ready. In fact, while the building of the Preet Vihar school is lying vacant, that of the Ludlow Castle school is being used by another school which would be merged with others in the neighbourhood.

Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), Hindu College, Acharya Narendra Dev (AND) College, Delhi College of Arts & Commerce (DCAC) and Kirori Mal College have announced their Second Cut-Off Lists for admissions to various undergraduate courses.

While SRCC has brought down its cut off for B.Com. (Hons) from 95.25 percent to 94.75 percent, Hindu College has brought down its cut off for B.Com. (Hons) from 95.75 percent to 94.5 percent.

The complete Second Cut-Off List will be announced tonight.

The cut-off marks for pure sciences (hons) hover between 80-90% almost every year with slight variations. The students from Arts/humanities stream may hope to gain admissions with 70% plus for subjects like economics, sociology, psychology etc. For admissions in to B.Com the very high percentages are required in chiefly mathematics, accountancy etc.      

Here, we have provided year-wise cut-off lists of Delhi University. The cut-off lists for the year 2009-10 will be available on this page, once the colleges release their lists.

Arts and Commerce Courses Cut-Off List 2009

Science Courses Cut-Off List 2009

Arts and Commerce Courses Cut-Off List 2009

Science Courses Cut-Off List 2009

In a letter to Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental, Dr. Kumar said: "Delhi University did not organise any camp for extending admission assistance for the benefit of SC/ST students, especially those who are coming from outside the city. As a result, a number of students who wanted to take admission in colleges have been left despaired."

The schools will now re-open on July 7, the government announced on Thursday.

"A heat wave condition prevails in Delhi and we have decided to extend the summer vacation for a week. We have issued orders for government and private schools to open July 7," Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely told reporters here.

The national capital has been reeling under intense heat with maximum temperature hovering over 40 degrees Celsius for the past few days. The city's misery has only been compounded by acute water and power shortages.

With an increase in the cut off percentage in most campus colleges of DU, the much expected effect of the OBC quota implementation seems to have nullified. However, some of the off-campus colleges have seen a decline or stagnant cut-off for Arts and Commerce courses this year as compared to the last year.

The cut-off at Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), for B.Com. (H), has marginally increased to 95.25-98.75 percent from 94.5-98 percent last year. For Economics (H) at the college, the cut-off has increased from 92.75-95.75 to 93.5-96.5 percent this year.

"I scored 95 percent and was hoping to secure a seat in B.Com. Honors at SRCC. The cut-off however increased this year. But I am happy to have cleared the mark for Economics Honors at SRCC", Abhinav Goyal, a DU aspirant from Jaipur (Rajasthan) told NNE.

For B.Com.(H) at Hindu and Ramjas College, students will require 94.75-97.75 percent and 94.5-97.5 percent respectively, both showing an upward trend.

The B.Com. Programme is available at 93-97 percent at Kirori Mal College, at 89-94 percent at Delhi College of Arts and Commerce (DCAC), at 91 percent at PGDAV College and 87-92 percent at Shaheed Bhagat Singh College.

One of the most sought after courses, English (H) has seen an increase in the cut-off in most of the colleges.

At LSR it stands at 91 percent, whereas at Hans Raj College it will be available for 86-90 percent.

In the Science Courses, the cut-off percentage for admission to Chemistry (Hons) at Sri Venkateswara has come down from 80 percent last year to 74 percent this year.

At Hindu College, Physics (H) is being offered at 91 percent, an increase from 90.33 percent last year. However, the cut-off for Chemistry (H) at the college remains same as that of the last year, at 86 percent.

Students who meet the requirements notified in the first cut-off list need to complete their admission formalities in the colleges concerned by 29th June, 2009.

Other Delhi University (DU) colleges are likely to follow suit --especially for popular courses such as Economics (honours), English (honours) and BCom (honours).

SRCC had declared a cut-off range of 94.5 per cent to 98 per cent in its first list last year.

This time, an increase of up to 0.75 per cent is likely.The first list will be out on Thursday.

Cut-offs at North Campus colleges like Ramjas,Hindu and Kirori Mal are expected to go up by 0.5 per cent to 2 per cent for English and Commerce.

"The number of applicants this year is much higher and we've an even greater number of students scoring above 95 per cent," said Gopal, admission coordinator,SRCC.

This year, DU received 1.13 lakh forms --the highest ever.

Higher cut-offs are also an indication of colleges playing safe.DU colleges will take about 7,000 more students this year.

This is being done so that the implementation of 27 per cent reservation for OBCs does not eat into the number of generalcategory seats.

"Since infrastructure expansion is not in consonance with the OBC quota increase, one intention of pitching for high cut-offs could be that colleges want to steer clear of over-admission," said Devraj Mookerjee, associate professor, Ramjas College.

Library of Sri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) is going to be fully air-conditioned. To keep a track on the books, a radio frequency identification system (RFID) will also be installed. With the installation of RFID, manual system of issue and deposit of books will be replaced.

An automatic machine will also be installed at SRCC library to take out prints of the journals or any such information available online.

SGTB Khalsa College is also planning to make its library web based.

"Our college library is well stocked with 1,33,000 books some even dating back to 1919," said Jaswinder Singh Principal SGTB.

The library at Kirori Mal College (KMC) has around 1.2lakh books. It has CCTV cameras installed at strategic locations above the book shelves.

"We update our library with 3,000 books every year,'' said librarian Om Prakash Hooda.

Technology is also being used at off-campus colleges like Dyal Singh. The college has web-based system at its library and is planning to have an exclusive library for science books in the next two years.

"We can't keep waiting to hear from the local bodies for permission for construction. Fact is the college needs classrooms and we have decided to build them with bamboo which will have a capacity to accommodate about 45 students," Savita M. Dutta, principal of Maitreyi College, told IANS.

Gargi, Sri Venakateswara, Daulat Ram, Maharaja Agrasen and Acharya Narender Dev colleges are also planning to greet students in the coming academic session with classrooms and canteens built with bamboo instead of concrete.

Last year, 42,000 seats were made available in the university whereas this year it will be extended to 49,000. The additional 7,000 seats were added across all undergraduate courses.

"In a meeting a month ago, vice chancellor Deepak Pental suggested the use of bamboo as a material to build new classrooms," said Sunil Sondhi, principal of Maharaja Agrasen College.

Meera Ramachandran, principal of Gargi college, said: "We are not sure how much time will be required to build these bamboo rooms; the plan is under consideration."

According to Delhi University administrative officials, the idea of these new classrooms actually came from the bamboo hut canteen in the varsity's south campus inaugurated a few months ago.

"Colleges like Sri Venkateswara, Gargi and Kirori Mal have got inspiration from the bamboo canteen and they plan to make classrooms from the same," said Dinesh C. Varshney, deputy dean of students welfare (DSW), Delhi University's south campus.

The university has given a thumbs up to the proposed structures and released funds for it. Each college will construct these classrooms on their own.

Seema Parihar, deputy DSW of the varsity, said: "We do not require clearance from the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) for building bamboo classrooms. The principals of colleges have made their presentations and money has been allotted to them accordingly."

Many students, however, are not upbeat about the proposed bamboo classrooms.

"If the fees is the same, how can they put one set of students in bamboo shacks and others in the concrete rooms! There should be equal infrastructure provided for everyone," said Nikita, a third year student of Kamala Nehru College.

Another varsity student who did not want to be named said: "There are private colleges where my friends study where they have some classes with asbestos sheet roofs. There, students had to face jeers like `oye slum JJ colony' - that could happen in our colleges as well. I don't like the idea."

Shagun, another student, said: "It is not a good idea! I mean bamboo classrooms for Delhi's extreme hot and cold weathers would be torture for us students."

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit along with Knowledge Commission chairman Sam Pitroda released the blueprint at a function in the Capital on Friday.

The blueprint provides an action plan for reforms in higher education, school education and vocational education with the focus on expansion, excellence and access. The State Government proposes to make Delhi a major educational centre. It is taking steps to expand the higher education system by setting up new systems and institutions such as a University of Under-graduate Education, a University of Science and Technology, a National Law School and an Indian Institute of Information Technology.

To take steps towards creating state-of-the-art knowledge hubs, the State Government is also setting up a Knowledge City that will allow self-financing institutions to come up.

Under vocational education, the Delhi Government proposes to launch a "Delhi Skills Mission" to make concerted and time-bound efforts for skill development. It has also initiated several schemes to expand capacity in Vocational Education and Training. Further, several innovative initiatives of the Delhi Government such as Information and Communication Technology applications in school education, Vidyalaya Kalyan Samitis, Building as Learning Aid, YUVA School Life Skills Programme and Chalta Firta School are aimed at improving school education quantitatively and qualitatively.

The National Knowledge Commission was constituted by the Prime Minister in 2005 as an advisory body to help restructure knowledge-related institutions and infrastructure in the country. In its three-year term, the Commission has made recommendations on 27 focus area relating to access to knowledge, knowledge concepts, creation of knowledge, knowledge applications and services.

The list of subject includes chemistry, botany, zoology, history, maths, economics and commerce.

"The content will be in multi media format which will have online quizzes, animations, virtual laboratories and audio-video clips," said Prof A. K. Bakshi, Director of the Institute of Life Long Learning (ILL).

The project is likely to be completed by December.

The project is part of a Rs. 5,000 crore scheme under the National Mission of Education through Information and Communication Technology.

The National Mission on Education through ICT has been launched by the ministry to encourage integration of information technology in the field of education.

"This was a special meeting. The post-graduate courses will now be developed according to the semester system. More than 20 M.A./ M.Sc. courses have been restructured and made more contemporary. In fact, some of these courses have been changed dramatically," said Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental.

The Academic Council had last year approved the proposal for introduction of the semester system for its post-graduate courses from the coming academic year.

However, the elected members of the Council and the Delhi University Teachers' Association used Tuesday's meeting to register their protest against Prof. Pental's "undemocratic" behaviour in passing the resolution earlier this month on initiating the semester system at the under-graduate level from the 2010-11academic year.

While the elected members protested in the well of the House, the DUTA executive staged a dharna outside the venue of the meeting. "We are surprised with the V-C's disregard for consultative process and refusal to meet academic concerns, which was evident in the manner in which he has pushed through this decision," said Abha Dev Habib, one of the members.
`Debate not over'

"Prof. Pental says the debate on the desirability of the semester system is over. That's not true. Most teachers feel the system is not feasible. The V-C is not saying how he will address our concerns," she added. Another member, J. Khuntia, also demanded withdrawal of the decision on the semester system at the college level.

The sessions will begin at 10 a.m. A brief preview of the departments, faculty and courses offered at the South Campus would be followed by a question-answer session.