VIJAYAWADA: The state government has finally given its nod to add the deprivation score to the marks of candidates seeking admission to Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT-IIIT) campuses across the state.
Though the High Court of Hyderabad recently pronounced a judgment against adding of deprivation score to backward students, the state government brought it back citing that it will help students with academic issues.
The official order in this regard is expected to be out this week. Speaking to Express, Prof V Ramachandra Raju, Vice-Chancellor of RGUKT-Nuzvid campus, said, “We have written a letter to the State government on the current scenario and court’s judgement. The state government has instructed us to go ahead by adding deprivation score. Within a few days, we will get clear information from the government and we will go ahead according to that.”
Every year thousands of students, who passed SSC exams, would apply for admissions in IIITs across the State. Though the admissions will be on a merit basis, students who hail from rural, poor and backward class would be given top priority. To these students, a deprivation score of 0.4 GPA will be added every year to the SSC GPA during admissions.
However, the High Court of Hyderabad cancelled the addition of deprivation score in October 2017. The authorities of RGUKT say the existing reservation system will not benefit the rural students, as reservations are only based on socio-economic backwardness but not on academic backwardness.
The authorities said that adding a score under academic backwardness are already existing in states like Jammu, West Bengal and Karnataka.