Ground reality

Updated on: Monday, July 11, 2011

Sports trials for colleges under Delhi University are almost over. However, according to some teachers, guidelines set by the university for admission under sports quota have been unfair to talented students.

As per teachers, guidelines for trials are not balanced and following them have resulted in preferential treatment to students who are winners of zonal-level tournaments over national-level participants.

Kavita Sharma, department of physical education, Daulat Ram College, says, "According to the guidelines, a candidate who has been a winner at school-level or statelevel games, has to be awarded more points as compared to a candidate who has participated in national-level games."

Sharma reasons that a national-level participant should be awarded higher points because s/he has reached that stage after crossing the hurdles of school and state-level tournaments. Otherwise, deserving candidates will lose seats. However, refuting the allegation that the university guidelines are not balanced, MC Agrawal, chairman, sports council of Delhi University, says, "These guidelines were framed after extensive discussions within the committee . They are not new to colleges and were followed in the last academic year during sports admissions as well.

Why were such concerns not raised then?"
Teachers, on the other hand, say that there were issues faced by colleges in the last academic year too. Says Sharma, "Even though sports trials were centralised last year, the university after conducting the trials, sent students with a slip which said that they are selected. However , they were not allotted a college. This created chaos as students kept running from college to colleges for admissions. The system, thus, was a failure."
"The university should conduct trials centrally and should ideally allot seats to students. This would help avoid confusion among students and teachers," suggests Sharma.

According to Agrawal, there could have been some issues while conducting the trials but they are unnecessarily being blown out of proportion.

He adds, "Since I have not been officially informed about any problems faced by colleges during trials, no action could be taken. If at all there are problems, the consultants and advisors of sports council are there to address them."

As sports trials are almost over, there is not much that can be done. But Agrawal claims that the members of the council are constantly evaluating the admission process based on which they plan to put forth a new system for sports admissions.

RULES RULE

A national-level participant should be awarded higher points because s/he has reached that stage after crossing the hurdles of school and state-level tournaments. But according to university guidelines that is not the case

Times of India

Ground reality

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