New Delhi, Delhi University (DU) has shortened its winter vacation for students pursuing the third and fifth semester of UG programme, reducing it to just four days from December 29 to January 1, 2025, according to an official notification. .
The move has drawn criticism from both students and teachers who lament that the change in the varsity's 2024-2025 academic calendar will disrupt their schedule and put an undue burden on them.
Typically, winter vacations for UG students of Delhi University are announced for about 15 to 20 days, teachers said.
In a communication issued on Tuesday, the DU informed that classes for the third and fifth semester will begin from August 1 while classes for the fourth and sixth semester will begin from January 2 next year.
The DU is yet to release the academic calendar of freshers, whose admissions are expected to be delayed due to the delay in declaration of CUET results.
Winter vacations for the third and fifth semester will begin from December 29 to January 1, 2025, according to the notification.
Expressing concern over the shortening of vacations in the new academic calendar, several teachers expressed fear that this would affect students coming from other states.
Teachers also expressed concern that the DU has not yet released the academic calendar for freshers and said this will lead to overlap in classes held simultaneously for different batches and put a burden on teachers.
"Delhi University before COVID used to publish a common academic calendar for all three years. However, due to the disruption caused by the pandemic, the varsity started publishing the calendar separately. In a bid to regularize the calendar, In 2023 again the common calendar was launched.
"Now, the varsity's decision to release the calendar only for second and third year students shows that there will be a delay in conducting admissions this year due to the delayed CUET results. This will shake our academic calendar and will cause logistical problems in taking classes when all batches are incorporated," said Maya John, a professor at Jesus and Marry College.
"This is another repercussion of NTA malfunctioning as the academic calendar of Delhi University has been derailed. The testing agency a couple of days ago released the answer key for CUET, definitely the final results of CUET are not available." They would declare before the first week of August," said Pankaj Garg, president of the teachers' wing of the INTEC Congress.
A professor from DU's Kirori Mal College said, “It is important to note that DU has not been able to notify the academic calendar of semesters I/II, i.e. first year in undergraduate programmes, due to the ongoing NTA fiasco. This is It is the third consecutive year that the UG admission process has been delayed in DU due to CUET.
"In 2022-23, when CUET was first introduced in DU for admission to UG, classes for semester 1 started in November because the Ministry of Education could not act together to conduct CUET on time. Last year, in 2023-24, despite the fact that the CUET was carried out early, the academic calendar began on August 16, 2023: three weeks later than expected due to a delay in the declaration of results and this year it is not expected that admission will occur in in the near future from the admission process itself. CUET is under scanner, thanks to the NTA," he added.
The move has drawn criticism from both students and teachers who lament that the change in the varsity's 2024-2025 academic calendar will disrupt their schedule and put an undue burden on them.
Typically, winter vacations for UG students of Delhi University are announced for about 15 to 20 days, teachers said.
In a communication issued on Tuesday, the DU informed that classes for the third and fifth semester will begin from August 1 while classes for the fourth and sixth semester will begin from January 2 next year.
The DU is yet to release the academic calendar of freshers, whose admissions are expected to be delayed due to the delay in declaration of CUET results.
Winter vacations for the third and fifth semester will begin from December 29 to January 1, 2025, according to the notification.
Expressing concern over the shortening of vacations in the new academic calendar, several teachers expressed fear that this would affect students coming from other states.
Teachers also expressed concern that the DU has not yet released the academic calendar for freshers and said this will lead to overlap in classes held simultaneously for different batches and put a burden on teachers.
"Delhi University before COVID used to publish a common academic calendar for all three years. However, due to the disruption caused by the pandemic, the varsity started publishing the calendar separately. In a bid to regularize the calendar, In 2023 again the common calendar was launched.
"Now, the varsity's decision to release the calendar only for second and third year students shows that there will be a delay in conducting admissions this year due to the delayed CUET results. This will shake our academic calendar and will cause logistical problems in taking classes when all batches are incorporated," said Maya John, a professor at Jesus and Marry College.
"This is another repercussion of NTA malfunctioning as the academic calendar of Delhi University has been derailed. The testing agency a couple of days ago released the answer key for CUET, definitely the final results of CUET are not available." They would declare before the first week of August," said Pankaj Garg, president of the teachers' wing of the INTEC Congress.
A professor from DU's Kirori Mal College said, “It is important to note that DU has not been able to notify the academic calendar of semesters I/II, i.e. first year in undergraduate programmes, due to the ongoing NTA fiasco. This is It is the third consecutive year that the UG admission process has been delayed in DU due to CUET.
"In 2022-23, when CUET was first introduced in DU for admission to UG, classes for semester 1 started in November because the Ministry of Education could not act together to conduct CUET on time. Last year, in 2023-24, despite the fact that the CUET was carried out early, the academic calendar began on August 16, 2023: three weeks later than expected due to a delay in the declaration of results and this year it is not expected that admission will occur in in the near future from the admission process itself. CUET is under scanner, thanks to the NTA," he added.
