DU is planning to do away with English entrance exam

Delhi University colleges collectively conduct entrance test enrolling students in English Honours exam. There are 21 DU colleges which have been collectively taking the entrance exam and accepting the test score of Common Aptitude Test for English (CATE). These colleges are planning to scrap this exam and conduct admission to the course on the basis of Class XII marks instead.

The CATE exam was introduced in the year 2010, and in the first CATE only 17 colleges have joined this exam, the number noticed a jump in 2011 and total number of colleges reached to 25. Last year, the numbers of colleges reduced to 21 including Hindu, Lady Sri Ram, Kirori Mal and Zakir Husain evening college, etc. were some among them.

As per the university officials, the universities are planning to scrap this exam for the time being keeping in view implementation of the new four-year-undergraduate programme. Generally, by this time, the English Department starts the preparing the questions paper after getting the confirmation from different colleges about their participation.

A senior university official said, “All departments are engaged in the course preparation. There is just about one-and-half months left for the admission process to start and the university administration is busy with the preparation of the implementation of the new undergraduate programme. The English department, which used to conduct the test, is also busy with the course design. The university is planning to keep the admission process simple, instead of having multiple procedures.”

One of the official source informed that the final decision has yet not taken, in all probability the CATE exam will not be conducted this year as has been suggested by the English department. The administration and the admission committee are also open with the idea that if the department or the colleges wish to have an entrance exam it can be reintroduced in the next academic year.