New Delhi: From this year, Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) will start offering undergraduate (UG) courses. The University will start with undergraduate courses in humanities. The sale of application forms for the courses will begin on June 28, 2010, and the last date of sale end on July 15, 2010. The course fees for undergraduate courses would be Rs 16,000 per semester.
AUD would select candidates on the basis of their performance in Class XII board examination. However, it would not be compulsory for students to include English in their best-of-four subjects. AUD is the first university to have introduced a four-year long dual-major BA (honors) degree. This means, according to Dean A.R. Khan, the students would be enabled to obtain majors in two programmes at the commencement of four years. Presently, the university will offer only three major courses, namely, economics, psychology and history.
Shyam B. Menon, Vice Chancellor of AUD, has said that the number of seats available for the first year of the courses would be only 120, due to infrastructural limitations. He added that however, from the next academic session, the University is aiming at increasing the number of seats to 500. He also said that the Government of Delhi has ensured that it would provide a new and much bigger campus at Ajmeri Gate, the next year. Further, he mentioned that since the university is being funded by the Delhi state government, 85 percent of the seats at the University would be reserved for candidates from the National Capital Territory.
The date of sale of application forms for AUD has been decided after the declaration of DU's first cut-off list to give some hope to students who are not able to secure a seat at any of the DU colleges. Menon said that students who do not get a course of their choice at DU would be enabled to try their luck at AUD for a seat. AUD earlier had only offered post graduate courses in developmental studies, environmental and development and psychosocial clinical studies.
