As a Covid-induced change, institutes are asking students to submit their vaccination status either while registering or after securing a seat.The Delhi University (DU) is likely to seek details of candidates’ vaccination status at the time of the online registration for admission to various undergraduate, postgraduate, and research programmes across its colleges and departments this year, said officials, adding that it will not affect the eligibility of students and is just to help create a database of students’ vaccination status before the university reopens physically. The varsity is also planning to get the vaccination status of its existing students.
Rajeev Gupta, dean of students’ welfare of DU says “The data will help us know how many students are not vaccinated and then we can create strategies to manage them on campus. The vaccination status has nothing to do with the admission process, unvaccinated students are not being restricted in any way. While we want to have a similar database of UG students, it is difficult because most of them are below 18 years of age and the vaccine has not been rolled out for them yet,”
Colleges across DU have been shut since March last year in view of the Covid-19 pandemic. The university reopened briefly in November last year for laboratory work of final year research students but it was again closed in April when the second wave of the pandemic hit the country.
Manoj Sinha, secretary of DU Principals Association (DUPA) and principal of Aryabhatta College, said that it would be helpful for the colleges also to keep a record of vaccinated or unvaccinated students. “The university should go ahead with this idea since this will be excellent for the colleges. It won’t be possible to reopen colleges before our students and teachers are fully vaccinated,” he said.
