Delhi University's Executive Council has accorded approval to commence PhD in Fine Arts from next academic year. It also approved a one-time age relaxation for voting and contesting in students’ union elections. The council meeting was held on Friday.

The meeting of the EC, the highest decision making body of the university.

“As per the demand made by various student unions, a one-time age relaxation of three years has been given for contesting and voting in the Delhi University Students’ Union elections,” the varsity said in a statement.

“This year the maximum age limit has been increased from 22 years to 25 years for undergraduate students and 25 years to 28 years for postgraduate students,” it said.

During the meeting, approval was also given to start PhD in Fine Arts from the session 2023-2024 by the Faculty of Music and Fine Arts.

According to rules passed by the body, a PhD scholar has to obtain a minimum of 55 per cent of marks or nine credits or its equivalent grade in the UGC 7- point scale in the course work in order to be eligible to continue in the programme and submit the dissertation/thesis. The teaching work per credit is four hours, the statement said.

The new programme MBA (Business Analytics), being started in the Department of Commerce, will start with 76 seats.

The EC also accepted the recommendations of the Value Addition Courses (VAC) Committee with a decision being taken to implement Vedic Mathematics-III, Vedic Mathematics-IV and National Cadet Corps-III from the academic year 2022-2023, the statement added.

Apart from these, the formation of various committees was also recommended for the organisational structure of the Research and Development Cell (RDC) of DU to promote research culture. There will be an RDC Advisory Committee with five different committees, it added.

During the EC meeting, the recommendations made in the Academic Council (AC) held on August 11 were considered. The syllabi for the fourth, fifth and sixth semesters for various departments and colleges according to the Undergraduate Curriculum Framework-2022 (UGCF-2022), was approved.

During the EC meeting Self Learning Material (SLM) was also accepted for the students of School of Open Learning (SOL) under Department of Distance and Continuing Education as per UGCF-2022, the statement said.

The Council also decided that the SLM of SOL will be reviewed by an expert group in the light of the suggestions given by the members of the Academic Council. The updated/revised SLM will be presented in the next meeting of the Academic Council.

Along with this, the proposed registration fee for SC/ST and PWBD students of the five-year Integrated Law Programme for the academic session 2023-24 has been reduced from Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,000, it said.

The papers based on courses of Skill Enhancement Courses (SEC) as per UGCF-2022 were also approved. These include Basics of Food Science and Nutrition, Basic Forensic science, Basic Laboratory Techniques, Public health, hygiene and nutrition among others.

Vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh said after these courses, students would be able to get placements in various sectors including food and drug evaluation centres. Not only this, they will also be able to set up their own business, the statement said.

On the fees of the new five-year Integrated Law programmes, he said the provision of fee waiver of up to 90 per cent has been kept by the university for those students coming from families having less than Rs 4 lakh annual income.

Such students can further be provided the assistance under the Financial Support Scheme for economically weak students, he informed the EC.

He also informed that students whose parents’ income is between Rs 4 to 8 lakh, will get 50 per cent fee waiver.

The vice chancellor informed that the students of the five-year Integrated Law will also be reimbursed up to Rs 50,000 for laptops by the university.

The guidelines for internship, apprenticeship and community outreach, applicable from semester 3 to 6 under UGCF 2022, were also approved by EC. Under this, before starting the apprenticeship or internship, the college should have a prior MoU with subject specific commercial and non-commercial organisations or enterprises and industry. The college may decide the number of seats for apprenticeship/internship training as per the available facility and infrastructure.