Around 4,000 students from Delhi University’s first four-year undergraduate batch remain uncertain about admission to the one-year master’s programme, with many saying they were unaware of the priority-based selection criteria. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)

12 min readOct 26, 2026 09:03 AM IST First published on: Oct 26, 2026 at 07:22 AM IST

Gaurav Sharma (21) did Hindi Honours with research at Kirori Mal College. He was among the higher scorers in his batch. This year he could not get into Delhi University’s one-year master’s programme, and he is now taking a part-time course in Portuguese.

Had he been on track, Gaurav would be closer to his goal of becoming an assistant professor. The National Education Policy’s (NEP) one-year master’s was meant to save him a year before applying for a PhD or appearing for NET. Instead, he is before the Delhi High Court, waiting for a way ahead and hoping it will ease his parents’ growing anxiety about his future.