Gender bender: Many Delhi University colleges offer relaxation in cut-offs to girls

Deen Dayal,for instance,has a two per cent relaxation for girls for all courses,except English (H) and BSc (H) Life Sciences. According to the principal Dr Suresh Garg,“The relaxation in the cut-off was introduced to promote education of girls and to ensure that there are equal number of girls and boys in the college.” Currently,45 per cent of the students in this college are girls.

“When English (H) was introduced in the college,we had offered a relaxation in the cut-off for girls. But we noticed that a large number of girls were opting for the course and the number of boys was quite low. So,the relaxation for girls was removed for this course. Similarly,BSc Life Sciences also attracts a large number of girl students,” he added.

Keshav Mahavidyalaya offers one per cent relaxation for girls in Electronics (H) and two per cent in Computer Science (H).

Dr Madhu Prithi,principal of Keshav Mahavidyalaya,said,“These courses are associated with the engineering field which is largely male-dominated. Thus,there are less number of girls opting for these courses. While we have been able to improve the girls to boys ratio in Computer Science (H) to 2:1,the situation in Electronics (H) has not yet improved.”

Motilal Nehru College (Evening) gives a five per cent relaxation to girls for all courses. “Most of the courses have a 20:80 girls to boys ratio while in English (H) almost 60 per cent students are girls,” said Dr B K Sharma,the principal of Motilal Evening College.